Into the Dark
by thelittletree
Summary: Tifa, a woman who knows what she wants but hesitates too long and loses it. Vincent, a man who has little to live for and is too uncomfortable with his own dark psyche to explore his own motives. Tifa makes a decision to take her life & Vincent steps in.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Prologue  
  
by thelittletree  
  
It was cold out. Tifa stood at the railing of the bridge and let the wind pluck at her hair as she stared up at the night sky, its encompassing blackness punctured liberally with dim, far-off stars. She'd left her coat at home, but she didn't really feel the cold. She was already dead, she told herself, as cold-blooded as her ex-lover. Fish were cold-blooded, and they never felt the chill of the water.  
  
Barret would cry. He'd cried for Jesse and Biggs and Wedge. He'd sobbed unashamedly for Marlene when Meteor had struck Midgar, before he knew she was safe in Kalm. He would cry for her. It was a little bit of a comfort to know that someone would visit her burial site.  
  
She slipped out of her shoes. She'd seen someone do that on television once, and it had struck her as particularly meaningful, like a stepping out from the confines of gravity, or out of an old skin. The craggy cement was cold on her bare feet, but she told herself she didn't notice. She told herself she wasn't afraid. This was what she had decided to do. She was no longer the hesitating, indecisive girl with her heart hidden away, trapped under her tongue. She was going to be reckless, like Cloud. She, too, would leave everything behind.  
  
There was so little traffic on this bridge. No one would know she was gone until they found her body somewhere downstream, waterlogged and grey as ashes. She climbed carefully over the railing, conscious of the drop in front of her. Her hands were trembling. She ignored them. She wasn't afraid. Aeris had won Cloud with a blade whistling through her body. Maybe Tifa could win him with burst lungs and cold, blue lips.  
  
The water looked dark and she could see the stars reflected in it. They shimmered with each breath of wind. Tifa closed her eyes and flew to her watery grave in the sky below. The impact knocked her mind to a place without stars.  
  
***  
  
She awoke suddenly. It was dark, and she was somewhere warm and comfortable. Dreaming? Had she been dreaming? This place was unfamiliar. Was she dead? Weak; that was what she was. She felt so weak. Could you feel weak when you were dead? And then she sensed the presence of someone nearby. Something in her quivered as if she should be afraid, but there was so much warmth around her it was impossible to feel like she was in danger. She opened her mouth and her lips felt chapped. "Father?" Her voice was no more than a croaking whisper. She didn't know why she thought it would be her father. She'd just always imagined that he would be the first one she met after her death.  
  
"No."  
  
This time, she felt a ripple of fear and tried to sit up, but her body felt like it was full of sand. She flailed and gave up, shivering with the effort and feeling uncomfortable with her feebleness. She was alive and in a bed, under blankets until she was sweating. Someone had brought her here, and she knew enough about people to be wary. "Who are you?"  
  
There was a sudden scraping sound, and then a lit match was illuminating a featureless, incomplete form in a chair. In a moment, a flame spurted to life in an oil lamp and the match was snuffed out. The heady smell of lingering phosphorus reminded Tifa of something indistinct from years ago. The light did little to dispel the shadows. "Who are you?" she asked again.  
  
The person leaned forward, into the glow of the flame. Tifa gasped and her lungs burned. "Vincent?"  
  
He withdrew into the darkness again, though Tifa could now make out the telltale mako red of his eyes. She stared at him in confusion. "Where am I?"  
  
"Nibelheim."  
  
The sound of his voice brought with it memories of the Highwind, the acrid smell of gunpowder, and a whirlwind of images from a myriad of inns around the world. What she remembered was all empty and nondescript, black and white pictures. She hadn't really known him; maybe none of them had. With the others, there were associated feelings -- things that had revealed them: Cid's surprising humanity, Yuffie's fierce pride despite her lingering immaturity, Red XIII's underlying loneliness. The most revealing thing about Vincent that she could remember was the one time she'd seen him with his hair down, and even that had only been no more than a superficial glimpse. "What...what happened?" She struggled to say something else because the question sounded wrong, like something you'd say after waking up from an accident. ('What happened?' 'Oh, you were hit by a car. You fell down the stairs. You bumped your head -- water is harder than it looks. Don't you remember?') But this hadn't been an accident, and she was somehow ashamed that there were no words to ask it differently, as if to make it sound more like a confession. She felt his eyes on her, measuring her hesitating silence, and she shut her mouth.  
  
"You jumped from a bridge," he answered. There was nothing soft about his voice to cushion the truth, and she suddenly felt that she probably knew as much about him as anyone did. She could recognize the quality of his tone, the same that had crept into his words when he'd spoken of himself -- a quiet despising that seemed almost more painful than something loud and violent. He judged himself, it had never been hard to see, and he was judging her for her actions, too. Though she knew she would receive no lecture from him. He had saved her, maybe out of a kind of pitying anger. She thought she could understand it. To him, she imagined it must seem as if she had hundreds of reasons to live.  
  
Though she didn't want to believe that right now. She'd made up her own mind to be selfish for once. She didn't want to be responsible anymore. She was so tired of being the person she was, and she deserved a break, didn't she? Ironic that, after all this time, someone would take responsibility for her when she finally wished to be left alone.  
  
Strange, in the end, that it had been Vincent, someone she thought probably understood the desire to die. Though maybe it was because he understood that he'd stopped her.  
  
"I knew what I was doing," she told him quietly, staring at the two specks of red in the room, trying to sound completely sure. This time she hadn't been indecisive and she hadn't backed down. She'd had the courage to go through with it. She wasn't stupid; she knew what it meant to die. And with nothing to live for, death wasn't so scary. It was a doorway to something new, where things would be different, even if there was no consciousness after death except for people like the Ancients. She'd thought it out and made a decision. Who was Vincent -- who was anyone -- to stop her? Her choice for her life, and there had been a freedom in knowing that she didn't have to justify her feelings to anyone for once.  
  
Vincent didn't say anything, but he got up from the chair. She saw a ripple of something, maybe the hem of his shirt, as he ducked in and out of the light before walking away.  
  
"I knew," Tifa tried to call after him, feeling angry at him for the sudden spurt of shame she felt. She didn't have to justify herself to him. She wasn't his responsibility -- she wasn't anyone's responsibility. "You should've just left me!" Her voice cracked. She choked on the pain in her throat and began to cough weakly.  
  
"Water. By the bed." His voice came out of the darkness, and then she heard the click of a door being drawn shut as he left the room.  
  
***  
  
Wow, I must be desperate to write something if I'm pairing up two characters from the game! This is an idea that's been done to death, but now I'm doing it. Character driven and starring two angsty people who are torn between wanting to be left alone and wanting to be figured out and saved. You tell me if it's worth it to keep writing, tho maybe I'll write it anyway. *grin* 


	2. So, We Meet Again

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter One: So, We Meet Again  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Tifa slept on and off throughout the night, drifting away and returning like a boat tugging on its anchor. Sometimes she couldn't remember where she was, but she was so weak and heavy and sleepy and warm that it didn't seem to matter. It was like being bodiless, she thought once during a pre-dawn moment of wakefulness, though she could feel the hair plastered to her forehead. It was like being sick with your father down the hall, except she knew this wasn't her house and she had no father anymore. She couldn't remember why she was here, but she remembered that she wasn't in danger. And it was enough to let her justify drifting off again.  
  
Close to morning, she had a dream that someone with fingers like ice was touching her cheek and, in an unconscious struggle to stay sleeping, she tried to shudder away. But they came again on her forehead, like a cold light breaking into warm darkness. She came close to waking then, as her mind came to the brief conclusion that she was sick and someone was tending her. So tired, but she forced her lips open to ask again, "Father?" There had been a time he had sat by her bed, not long after her mother had died, with a bowl of frigid water on his knees and an icy cloth in his hand.  
  
The fingers didn't return and in her dream her father was leaving the room. She wanted to call after him. It felt like it had been so long since she'd seen him last and there was a familiar ache in her chest as he departed, as if he might've been taking the majority of her heart with him. But she couldn't make a sound, and in a few moments she was falling into a deeper sleep.  
  
When she woke again, it was morning and the curtains of the window by the bed had been drawn back to let the sun in. A rectangle of warm light was splashed across the blanket in front of her until brown was almost yellow, and birds were singing somewhere. Wearily, she rubbed gritty eyes and pushed herself up on trembling arms. The earthy smells of sweat and hair, mingled with the scent of freshly laundered sheets, filled her nose and she grimaced as she looked around. She'd had a fever, she realized; that hadn't been a dream. None of it, except for the presence of her father, had been a dream.  
  
The room was small, like a spare chamber converted into a bedroom, with bare, cream-coloured walls and rough, off-white carpeting. To her left, a closet had been built into the corner and she could see straight shadows, the suggestion of clothing, through a crack between the folding doors. To her right stood a night table where sat the long-expired oil lamp. And Tifa couldn't help but wonder if this was Vincent's own bedroom. Nothing said so conclusively, but no one else's room, she thought to herself, would've been so audaciously barren as Vincent's.   
  
Moving slowly, she slipped her legs over the edge of the bed and took an experimental breath. Her lungs still felt blistered and her throat was still raw, but she felt better than she had the night before. And, despite her desperate state of mind, she couldn't deny that there was something inherently pleasing about regaining her health. Ironic, she thought, to feel this way when she'd planned to be dead by now. With a tired, burdened sigh, she pushed a hand into her tangled hair and scratched at her scalp.  
  
The large, open sleeve of the gray t-shirt she was wearing caught her eye and she felt confused for a moment. This wasn't hers. And then she realized Vincent had changed her out of her clothes.  
  
'Of course he would've,' she told herself, ignoring the impulse to picture Vincent -- stoic, uncommunicative Vincent -- pulling her out of her sopping pants and sweater, and then maneuvering her into something dry. 'No one would've left me in wet clothing.' She was still wearing her underwear, though, and she suddenly suspected that Vincent had taken to the task with no more thought for her femininity than Barret would've had; Barret, who was the closest thing she had to a father, and who wouldn't have hesitated for a second to strip her naked if it would've saved her life. For a moment, she felt obliged to Vincent, and then she felt a twinge of grief for her old leader and comrade. Barret had already lost so many people; could she really justify taking herself away, too?  
  
And then she quashed the feelings down. No longer was she going to be responsible for anyone else's happiness. She'd lost her parents, her innocence, her lover, and her bar; her life was in shambles. Didn't she deserve a chance to end her own suffering?  
  
The door to the room was open a crack, and Tifa gingerly got to her feet so that she could peek out into what looked like a living room. No sign of Vincent, and she couldn't hear anyone moving around. Quietly, she opened the door and stepped out.  
  
It wasn't an apartment so much as the story of a house, she thought as she glanced around. Fairly spacious, and still sort of empty despite a bookshelf and a second-hand couch, armchair and coffee-table. No curtains on these windows, she noticed. No standing lamps or potted plants anywhere, and no television. Vincent, Tifa thought again -- maybe it had been nearly three years since she'd last seen him, but it was still very Vincent, even if it wasn't an old, empty, dusty mansion. No personal effects. Just the evidence that *someone* lived here. A shell without a personality. Very Vincent.  
  
She crept into the living room until she could see through an open doorway into the kitchen: a table, two chairs, some predictable appliances. But still no Vincent. And then she stopped to wonder why she was looking for him in the first place. Not to thank him, certainly. Maybe out of some subconscious desire to know 'why', though she supposed it didn't really matter. Not, perhaps, as much as making a hasty departure before he came back. Since he had seen fit to rescue her, she doubted he would simply let her leave again. So now was likely the best chance she'd have to go unnoticed.  
  
The door to the outside world was not locked; beyond it was a landing and a long stairwell leading down to another door. As she stood for a moment with a steadying hand on the door jamb, a breath of cool air whispered over her bare knees and reminded her that she was still in only a t-shirt. She gave a fretful sigh and was just about to go and make a search for her clothes when the door at the bottom of the stairs suddenly opened and a man entered. Startled, she jumped back and nearly slipped from the doorstep. The man glanced up quickly at the movement.  
  
And Tifa's eyes widened as she recognized him.  
  
He was the same, and yet different than she remembered: his hair was still long, though she had the impression it had been cut once and allowed to grow out again; his eyes remained red and he still sported the claw on his left arm, a golden contrast to pale skin. But he no longer wore the bandana or the concealing cape. Comfortably casual, he was dressed in black slacks and a gray v-necked sweater that looked oddly appropriate on him, as if he might never have worn the blue suit of the Turks or come out of a coffin. Tifa supposed after a moment that she shouldn't have been amazed by the changes. It *had* been three years, and that could be a long time to a man forced to start from the beginning. But it was still a shock to see him like this, in the light.  
  
Especially when he had a laundry basket tucked under one arm, hugged against his hip -- a picture so uncharacteristically domestic that, had she been in the mood (and had he been anyone else), she might've felt compelled to chuckle.  
  
He looked faintly surprised to see her there at first. And then there was a small shift in his expression, and here again was the Vincent she remembered: guarded, close-mouthed, and still a little frightening if she let herself admit it. After a second, he turned his eyes from her and started up the stairs. "You shouldn't be up," he said as he approached, and his voice was the same as it had been last evening, as it had been any number of times she'd heard him speak in Avalanche: deep and brusque, like he didn't want to be speaking at all.  
  
Tifa felt a stone drop into her stomach. He was going to make her stay, probably until he felt she was 'well' enough to go. Though she would never be 'well' again and he, of all people, wasn't to be fooled by an act about how everything was 'all right'.  
  
Therefore, she basically had three options, she realized: submit to him, fight him, or run. In her current condition, forgetting the fact that she hadn't trained in months and months, she knew she wouldn't be able to overpower him; and submitting was out of the question. That left only one recourse. Nevermind the fact that she was dressed only in a t-shirt. Nevermind that she had no shoes. She would have to run, and to make it, if she wanted the freedom of choice again.  
  
Desperately, she shut her eyes and, without hesitating, took to her heels down the stairs. She had no plan, no clue about what to do once she was out the door, no idea how she would escape if he pursued her; but she was trying not to think about it. Cloud had always flown by the seat of his pants -- last minutes decisions had sometimes seemed like the only decisions he could make -- and it had worked well enough for him...  
  
Vincent moved as she brushed past him, but whether he was getting out of her way or reaching for her she couldn't tell, and she wasn't about to stop to find out. The bottom was in sight and it wouldn't take much to jump the rest of the way.  
  
At least, normally it wouldn't have taken much; her fighting skills and instincts for defense usually allowed her to do almost anything she pushed her body to do. But not this time. She could feel that something was wrong even as she leapt from the stairs, as if her timing was somehow off, and when she landed it was with most of her weight on her right leg. She quickly tried to compensate, but it was too late. The damage had already been done: a fire had started in her ankle that was almost certainly a sprain. Clenching her teeth, she fell heavily against the door, fighting a sudden bout of nausea.  
  
When Vincent started down after her, she didn't turn to look at him, feeling too foolish to meet his eyes. "Take me to Kalm," she ordered quietly, staring resolutely at a knot in the wood of the door. Her voice only trembled a little.  
  
"You need some ice on that ankle."  
  
She closed her eyes, feeling suddenly almost too weary to speak. "I don't want to be here, Vincent. I want to go home."  
  
"I don't think you want to be there, either." He was standing right behind her now, a familiar, unpredictable stranger who knew too well what she was feeling. Of course she didn't want to be at home; she wanted to be drowned, face down in the water.  
  
"Take me back, right now. I want to go back."  
  
"Your ankle," he reminded her mercilessly.  
  
It was like being a child who doesn't want to go to school, she thought, but who suspects they will be made to go anyway. And it made her angry. Scared and angry. "I don't care about my fucking ankle! I just want to go home!"  
  
Vincent didn't move or make a reply, and Tifa felt her resolve to fight abruptly begin to drain away. She didn't have the strength to stand against his inscrutable will if she'd been reduced to obscenities. How many times had Zangan drilled into her that to lose one's temper was to lose the battle? She sagged in defeat against the door.  
  
And, obviously sensing victory, Vincent stepped up to put her limp right arm over his shoulders and his metal hand around her waist. "Walk," he then said simply, "or be carried."  
  
At least he wasn't going to strip her completely of her dignity. With a tired, resigned sigh she pushed away from the door and began the awkward trip back up the stairs.  
  
Vincent, she noticed, smelled like shampoo and laundry detergent.  
  
***  
  
Once they were in the apartment Vincent managed to maneuver her to the couch, and then he brought her some ice in a plastic bag. Still without meeting his eyes, she took the compress from him and put it against her ankle. It wasn't a bad sprain, she realized as she looked down at the slow swelling. Just enough to keep her hobbling around for a few days, maybe a week at most.  
  
And then she had the mad urge to laugh, or to burst into tears, though she wasn't about to do either. Yesterday, she'd hoped to jump from the bridge and never recover, and now here she was, hunching over her ankle with a bag of ice as if it really mattered whether it healed or not. So long spent fighting, she thought grimly, that staying alive had become an ingrained habit.  
  
Vincent left for a moment, back out the door they'd entered through, and then returned with the laundry basket. Wordlessly, he dropped a pair of pants and a sweater she recognized as her own onto the coffee table beside her. After a second, she put out a hand to touch them; the warm, dryer feel of them seeped into her skin. "You didn't have to do this," she murmured, if only for something to say. Because she was still determined not to say thank you.  
  
And then he pulled her shoes out of the basket and placed them on top of her clothes. Tifa stared at them for a moment in surprise; hadn't she left these on the bridge? She glanced up, half-intending to ask Vincent about them, but now when she would look him in the eye he was turning away. The words died on her lips as he walked into the kitchen. "Are you hungry?"  
  
The question wasn't unusual, or even really unexpected, but something about it caught her off-guard. After a pause she wondered if it was the sheer conventionality of it. They hadn't seen each other or even kept in touch for three years, and the extenuating circumstances of their reunion had so far dashed away all possibility of small talk and social nicities. And now they were host and guest without so much as a 'How are you?'  
  
Not that she knew much about him beyond what he'd told them in the beginning, and those facts weren't exactly conversation starters. 'So, your girlfriend still dead? How's the atonement-thing working out for you? Transformed into anything lately?'  
  
"I don't want to eat. I want to go home."  
  
"Yes, I realize."  
  
From anyone else, she might've expected it to sound sarcastic, but Vincent's voice was so flat she couldn't imagine that he was trying to make a joke. It would've been in very poor taste, she thought, if he had been. "Are you going to take me back, then?"  
  
He was standing motionlessly by one of the chairs, not looking at anything in particular. And Tifa thought she could almost see how her presence might have interrupted a kind of peace he'd achieved here. Was he irritated by her single-mindedness? Was he beginning to wonder himself why he'd brought her here? Because he didn't seem to have any plan beyond holing her away so that she couldn't try to kill herself again.  
  
"Or are you just going to keep me here?" She let some of the bitterness she was feeling seep into her tone.  
  
But Vincent seemed unaffected by her anger as he continued to stare off into a distance only he could see, as if he was considering things that had very little to do with her.  
  
"I told you I knew what I was doing," she tried again. "You had no right to stop me." She was almost proud of how steady and sure she sounded. "This could be considered kidnapping, you know."  
  
He still made no reply, no move even to acknowledge the fact that she was speaking at all. And when he went to leave the apartment again, she wasn't surprised, suddenly reminded of all of the times he'd simply walked away from Cloud and the others when they'd asked him to explain himself.  
  
Maybe he'd changed his clothes; maybe he was no longer sleeping the years away in a coffin; maybe he'd even melted down all his guns. But he was still the impenetrable brick wall she remembered.  
  
And, as he opened the door to the apartment, murmuring something that sounded suspiciously like, "I'll be back in a few moments," before stepping out, she thought about how wrong she'd been yesterday in thinking that things couldn't possibly get any worse.  
  
***  
  
Heh, sorry this one took a little while to post. I've been at my family's cottage for the past six days and it was great! I wrote this chapter (and half of the next one) there. Ah, relaxation. And an outhouse. 


	3. A Little Warmth and Light

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Two: A Little Warmth and Light  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Vincent slipped down the stairs and in a moment came to the door at the bottom. From here, he went outside and around to another door, which he gave a brief rap with his knuckles. It was nearly eleven; she was bound to have been up for hours.  
  
Ten seconds hadn't passed before a thirty-something woman with shrewd green eyes and feathery blond hair answered the knock; something about her expression told him she had been expecting him -- perhaps had been expecting him far earlier. "Well, she's awake I'm guessing."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And how is she?"  
  
Vincent weighed a few possible replies before finally saying with a sigh, "Angry."  
  
The woman nodded, looking unsurprised. "I could've told you that last night if I'd thought you'd listen to me. Well, nothing for it now. I made her something to eat, maybe that'll help a little. But you shouldn't have left her up there alone." She stepped away from the doorway and returned a moment later with a foil-covered pan. "Is she vegetarian? It's lasagna."  
  
Vincent shrugged, and when he turned he was nearly able to feel the scowl she was aiming at his back. Not that he paid it much mind. During his lifetime he'd had worse things aimed at him and very little could ruffle him anymore.  
  
Very little except the prospect of adding to his already extensive sins, he acknowledged grudgingly as he headed back toward the stairs. Leaving Tifa to drown after watching her jump would've weighed heavily on his conscience; another death to add to his tally. And not just any death, but the death of someone who had been there in the last minutes of the world when things had been desperate. Not that he'd known any of the members of Avalanche well, and not that he'd had much cause to think about any of them in a long time; but there had been a kind of bond there, and he'd felt honour-bound to return and finish what they'd started when Cloud had given each of them the chance to leave.  
  
Honour-bound, maybe, to run to the bank and plunge into the icy water, to grope around until he'd been able to feel hair that wasn't his own slipping through his fingers. To pull the water-logged weight of an unfamiliar body into his arms, to wrap her in a dry piece of clothing and climb onto the back of his feathered mount. Because he'd had no more money for the inn, and the nearest place of shelter he would've be accepted was his own home, in Nibelheim. Racing along in the cold air until she'd been burning with fever and whimpering for her father, for Cloud, for anyone to save her from that searing darkness.  
  
It had been the only time he'd ever heard her call for help. In Avalanche, her visible pride and strength, her determination to do it herself, had often led her to stand alone in a fight. He'd been able to relate, recalling his days in the Turks when teamwork had been a dirty word to him. They had all been good fighters; even Reeve, in his own way, as a spy in the camp of the enemy. But perhaps Tifa most of all; she'd fought with the kind of confident calm that made soldiers, after they'd watched her beat their comrades into bloody pulps, look into the quiet rage in her face and run.  
  
Though now there seemed little trace of that woman left in the angry, desperate girl he'd left on his couch. And, somehow, he felt a kind of grief for it. And a kind of bitterness. She should have continued fighting.  
  
She should have continued living.  
  
But Hojo...  
  
Hojo had convinced her it was safe, though she should have known better. Lucrecia... So strong, and then so weak, pulling away from him like a dead leaf falling from a branch. 'No, Vincent, I'm...I'm not going to the hospital. It's too late. I just...want to die...'  
  
Vincent opened the door and started up toward his apartment, not even glancing behind him to see if the woman was following. He knew that she was. She would have followed him up last night when he'd brought Tifa in, if he'd let her.  
  
He was a fool; no use in denying it. An oblivious fool with such a drive to atone, if only to keep his own demons at bay.  
  
Lucrecia had nothing to do with this. Guilt and grief had nothing to do with this. A warrior's simple desire to see his comrades live. An old man's simple wish to see the next generation succeed. That was all it was. Nothing more.  
  
And nothing to do but continue. No way out but forward.  
  
Honour-bound to finish what he'd started...  
  
***  
  
Tifa glanced up as the door opened and was surprised to see Vincent enter followed by a woman. She wasn't anyone Tifa recognized, blond and grim with an aura of worldly wisdom about her, but something about the way she was staring made Tifa sure the woman had seen her already. It was a little unnerving to be at a loss like this and she felt another rush of anger at Vincent for involving a stranger. It was none of his business, none of the rest of the world's business. And she felt again the desire to escape, to run away before someone asked her about the bridge.  
  
Because those answers were her own and she didn't have to justify herself. Saying them would be like vomiting up her internal organs. It would be painful to put them on the outside for others to see...  
  
The woman walked into the kitchen with a kind of assurance that said this wasn't the first time she'd been in Vincent's home, and placed a pan she'd been carrying on the table. She looked irritated as Vincent walked away from her toward the bedroom. "You didn't say anything about her ankle."  
  
Vincent said nothing, and after a moment Tifa heard a door close behind her. The woman sighed to herself and muttered something under her breath before turning to Tifa. She had the air of someone who knows they're intruding, but who is determined to say their piece anyway. "Well, I imagine the last thing you want is some busy-body asking questions, and my grandmother used to tell me when I was a girl: 'When you don't know what to say, bring food.'" She gestured to the pan on the table. "So, here's some lasagna, if you want. My name's Lily Townshend. I live downstairs."  
  
She didn't approach or hold her hand out for Tifa to shake, and Tifa felt absurdly grateful for not being expected to follow social regimes, especially when she was still hunched over her ankle.  
  
The woman, Lily, turned to the kitchen and briskly set about straightening it up, though it seemed neat enough. And Tifa thought there was something about her that said she'd been in awkward situations before -- so many that she was no longer embarrassed by them. And, for the first time in so long she didn't want to count the months, she felt a curious kind of interest in something, someone else. Who was Lily? What had she lived through to have become so sure and outspoken?  
  
How in the world had she come to know someone like Vincent?  
  
Cid, she thought suddenly. Brash and bold like Cid, a man who'd seen his dreams crumble into themselves like charred buildings and who'd been so irrepressibly, unashamedly human that he'd sometimes seemed almost immortal. Tifa had envied him occasionally, the way he'd embraced his vices and forced people to take him or leave him the way he was. She'd wanted to be like that. If only she'd been like that.  
  
If only, if only, if only...then maybe *he* wouldn't have left. It always came back to the same tired old story.  
  
Tifa came out of her thoughts as Vincent re-entered the room, now dressed in a black button-up he'd neglected to tuck in and with his hair pulled back haphazardly into a working ponytail. And without the bulk of the sweater, without the cape, he looked almost too thin to be healthy. Lily glanced up at him from where she'd been bent double and looking into the interior of his stove. "Do you ever clean this?" she demanded, straightening up. "Maybe you pay rent here, but you still have to take care of the place."  
  
Vincent practically ignored her as he stepped into the kitchen, and she closed the oven door without another word.  
  
There was a peculiar dynamic between them, Tifa thought, trying not to stare as she switched the ice pack into her other hand. They'd known each other for a while, that was certain; the silence between them was comfortable and familiar. But not as lovers, Tifa ruled out right away. That seemed too bizarre. Friends? It seemed to go beyond the simple titles of landlady and tenant, which they were likely to be if he paid rent to her.  
  
"Is this still warm?" He indicated the pan on the table.  
  
"Should be."  
  
He pried the foil off with an attentive briskness and turned to open a cupboard above the sink.  
  
"Get three," Lily told him quietly as she pulled some cutlery out of a drawer at her hip.  
  
Vincent brought down three plates and Tifa was forced to look away as she realized how closely she was watching him. Was this the same Vincent she'd been arguing futily against only minutes ago? He seemed entirely too...normal, if that was the word, as if it was easier to believe that there really wasn't, and had never been, a personality behind those guns, those painful, wrathful transformations, and that omnipresent stoicism.  
  
Lily began to cut the lasagna into sections, and then she set about lifting three pieces out, one by one, onto the plates. Tifa was almost surprised when the woman looked up to meet her eyes. "You going to come eat with us?"  
  
Tifa marveled initially that they thought she might be interested in food. She didn't want to be here, she'd made that perfectly clear, and no amount of consideration on anyone's part was gong to make her forget that she'd been saved against her will.  
  
Still, her stomach grumbled, and more to keep herself from acknowledging it than to make a show of denying it, she turned once more to her ankle. Maybe her stomach was empty, but food wasn't a temptation. She'd gotten used to hunger over the past few months as her bar had declined into obscurity, a small business being bullied out by bigger, grander establishments. She'd gotten used to the way her clothes seemed to hang off of her and the way her cheeks sank in, close to the bone. She'd even become used to the way, day by day, life had changed into something she could no longer bear alone, though she hadn't been able to make herself burden someone else with it.  
  
It was the way it had been since her father had died, whether she liked it or not. Her life, her problems, her solutions; and this time nothing was going to sway her from what she'd chosen because she knew nothing would make anything better.  
  
Though -- gods help her, her mouth was watering -- it smelled wonderful.  
  
Vincent and Lily had already started eating. Vincent, she noticed, was holding a knife awkwardly in his clawed fingers, though he used it with an ease that seemed practiced. They'd left the chair closest to her empty in open invitation.  
  
Her stomach grumbled again and she swore under her breath. The last betrayal of her body; weak, injured, and hungry. Desperately alive and voicelessly pleading to be allowed to continue living.  
  
She could just starve to death, she told herself. But that, of course, was what the bridge had been for. She'd already been starving, and had decided it was taking too long. If she was going to die anyway of stomach-ache and heartbreak, it might as well be quick and numbing. She hadn't wanted to starve.  
  
She still didn't want to starve. Damn them! Damn Vincent! And damn herself, too...for being weak, wishy-washy, and so weary of it all. No more pain, please. Please.  
  
She wasn't going to try and walk on it. A sprain was a sprain, and she'd seen the kind of bruising that could result when one tried to rush it. How much longer would that take to heal? Just that much longer before she could try to run again. She levered herself up from the couch with her arms and then put a steadying hand to the coffee table. And then she began to hop toward the kitchen, without looking up to see if they were watching.  
  
It didn't take her long to reach the chair, and then she was lowering herself carefully into it. She didn't dare meet their eyes. She didn't have to justify anything. She was just doing this to keep her strength up, until she could escape. Not to starve, but to drown. Not to starve, but to drown. Not to starve...  
  
It was still warm, and after the first bite she had to force herself not to eat the rest too quickly. Small and empty like an old, brittle balloon, she knew her stomach would reject it if she filled it too fast. The smell and the taste were like putting a memory into her mouth. When had been the last time she'd eaten lasagna? Somewhere with a gathering, she recalled; maybe a holiday, or some kind of reunion...  
  
Oh yes, Cid's wedding to Shera. Someone had made lasagna for the reception. Maybe Shera herself; she'd overheard one of the crew's technicians saying that the woman had done far too much for her own wedding. Sewing tablecloths, folding napkins. She'd been determined to have a hand in it all, no matter what Cid had said. She'd learned a kind of pride out of the hardships she'd endured, and she'd been her own worst critic. A perfectionist, she'd refused any kind of help...  
  
All of their friends together; Cloud laughing beside her as Barret good-naturedly razzed the new groom; Vincent as the only one missing from their number. Gifts and smiles and dancing. Oh god...  
  
She pushed the plate away from her and put her hands to her face. No, no, no...  
  
She was crying. For the first time in so long she couldn't remember, she was crying. And no matter how she tried to cover her eyes the tears still leaked out between her fingers. And a little light leaked in.  
  
***  
  
Thanks to everyone who's reviewed! This fic is going in a somewhat different direction than I'd first planned and I hope the liberties I'm taking don't scare everyone away... *eyes the Lily growing in the middle of her fic*  
  
And I have no idea if they would have lasagna in the FF world. Prob'ly not. But in this story they do. I like lasagna. 


	4. Calling a Bluff

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Three: Calling a Bluff  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Tifa spent the rest of the day sitting on Vincent's bed with her foot elevated, staring out of the window. Occasionally, she could hear Vincent wandering around his apartment, and sometimes she was sure he came to stand right outside the crack between door and jamb as if to make sure she hadn't grown wings and flown away.  
  
But she was still earth-bound, if not bound in the earth (in a box, under six feet of dirt). Either way, she was trapped, though she would rather not have been trapped with her thoughts.  
  
She'd learned how to keep from thinking about the happy times, because she'd gotten tired of crying and fighting herself. But now she was thinking again. How many times had she thought about the phone on the wall, or the PHS in a drawer? Barret would've taken her in; Cid, too, probably. Any of them, though she admitted she never would have called Vincent.  
  
But she'd felt so ashamed, and she hadn't wanted to answer any questions. Absurdly afraid that Cloud would find out if she said anything, and then he would be disgusted with her. Then, the bar had started to die when she'd been almost past caring...  
  
The first tears had been like water trickling from a crack in a dam, and then the pressure, months and months of it, had blown the walls open. And now she couldn't stop. Silent tears pulsing down her cheeks as she thought about everything: her mother, who really might as well have been a ghost from the beginning; her father -- she could still remember what his aftershave smelled like; Zangan, who had taught her about pain, and then about strength; Cloud, the underdog boy they'd picked on; Barret, the father with shoulders enough to carry her and Marlene and Jesse and Biggs and Wedge; Cloud, the man with wrong memories, with haunting eyes, with a soft, authoritative kind of voice. Cloud, whose lost anger had called out and laid hold of her heart.  
  
Then Aeris, who could soothe any soul injury with a word, a look, a smile. Cloud, looking at Aeris. Cloud, smiling at Aeris. Cloud, grieving for Aeris.  
  
Cloud, the lover. Cloud, the leaver.  
  
Tifa, the lonely. Tifa, the stagnant. Tifa, the dead, finally letting go toward the water.  
  
But she wasn't dead. She wiped the tears away with the heel of her hand, like she'd been doing every few minutes, but more tears replaced them. More and more. Maybe she'd drown in this room if she cried enough.  
  
Vincent was standing outside the door again. She couldn't hear him, but she knew he was there. She sighed and shifted her shoulders until they cracked. "I'm still here, Vincent. I haven't gone anywhere."  
  
He didn't answer, and in a moment she sensed his departure. Like a shadow, Tifa mused suddenly, practically unnoticed in the back of Avalanche. He'd watched their backs, been their rear-guard without waiting for someone to assign him the position, and he'd very rarely let anything catch them unawares.  
  
Though something about his methods had sometimes bothered her.   
  
She remembered the first time he'd transformed: in a copse of trees, he'd turned, maybe at the sound of a footfall, and had caught a handful of bullets across the chest like a sash of spraying blood. Shinra had been trailing them, of course. And then, before anyone could prepare a healing spell, he'd ripped out of his body and into what he'd named the Galian Beast.  
  
After that, she recalled, she'd begun to suspect that he was deliberately hesitating before reporting pursuit from behind, until the monsters were almost on them. That way, he'd often caught the first assault himself, as if he'd been trying to welcome a fatal blow that never happened. Because it had been impossible after a while to doubt his hearing.  
  
That had frightened her more than the transformations, sometimes: how eager he'd seemed for death.  
  
She'd been very naive.  
  
She didn't sense his presence this time before Vincent opened the door and entered the room with a mug of water in his hand. It surprised her a little that he'd returned, and she watched him without moving until he'd put the mug on the night table. And then she gave into the temptation to know. She had to know.  
  
She reached out a hand and grabbed his sleeve. His eyes immediately found hers, though she couldn't tell if she'd startled him. And then he waited, hunched beside the bed, and she thought she saw one of his eyebrows twitch as if he might ask her what she wanted.  
  
He was more than a shadow. He'd always been more than a shadow. They'd just never known him as anything else.  
  
"Why'd you do it, Vincent? Why'd you save me?"  
  
He flicked his eyes away from her and moved to stand. "No one would have left you in the water."  
  
"But why didn't *you*? You...you know about wanting to die."  
  
He glanced back at her sharply, as if the revelation from her lips had caught him off-guard.  
  
"You know what it's like, to get to that place where you're trapped in pain and you'd do anything to make it stop."  
  
He didn't reply right away, but Tifa thought she saw something flicker across his expression. And then he shook her hand off. "Time opens doors. No one is trapped forever."  
  
She was surprised again, to hear that from Vincent. "Still, it wasn't your responsibility to make sure I lived. I wasn't 'crying out for help', if you're wondering."  
  
"Then what have you been crying for?" His gaze was suddenly very direct, and she felt somewhat taken aback by the change in his tone. He almost sounded offended. "Have you been mourning your failed suicide attempt all of this time? Or..." He leaned in a fraction closer and Tifa thought for a moment that she could see brown flecks in the red of his irises. "...are you crying out of the pain you wish would stop?"  
  
It was a trick. He was trying to trap her with her own words. With a scowl, she looked away from him.  
  
"Because even children know that tears rouse the concern of others." He didn't spend a moment in gloating, but stood quickly and turned toward the door. Before he reached it, however, Tifa felt her anger peak and she sat up from the headboard. "You're just jealous!"  
  
She saw his head come up suddenly and as he stopped walking she felt a thrill of vengeful glee at having gotten a reaction. "You're jealous because you can't die! You just transform when you get hurt, don't you? You're jealous because I can kill myself whenever I want!"  
  
She half-expected him to round on her, to shout and then storm away the way Cloud had every time they'd fought and she'd hit a nerve. But Vincent wasn't Cloud. If she'd been thinking clearly, she might've remembered that Vincent was a dangerous, unstable kind of person, someone it probably wasn't prudent to upset.  
  
But Vincent didn't even seem to be Vincent. If she'd ever known who Vincent really was. He gave a short sigh and simply left the room without a word.  
  
Feeling angry and wretched, Tifa picked up the mug and threw it after him with a frustrated cry of effort. She was almost disappointed when it didn't shatter; it gave a brief crack on the edge of the door before breaking into a couple of pieces and falling to the floor. Stronger than a glass, and the water soaked easily into the carpet.  
  
Nothing ever happened the way it was supposed to.  
  
***  
  
The sun was beginning to set by the time she heard movement again in the apartment. A knock on the front door got Vincent up to answer it, and then he and Lily were speaking quietly together. About her, no doubt, Tifa thought bitterly. Her ankle was aching in a pinched sort of way, but she'd been ignoring it for hours because she couldn't bring herself to ask Vincent for more ice. Despite her anger, she was feeling ashamed of her outburst. If children used tears to show their distress, they used tantrums to get back at the one who showed concern for their tears, but who didn't do everything they wanted. And she was determined to stop letting her temper get the better of her, because she wasn't a child.  
  
She was an adult who'd made a decision. If only Vincent could understand what she'd been through these past months, what shame and isolation she'd endured with no friends (and eventually no employees) and no money to move. Not even a bar to sell because she'd rented the building. In debt and alone and heartbroken...  
  
She...she hadn't wanted to die in the beginning. But her life had gone so wrong, and she'd started to wonder if there was a point in trying to make it better if Cloud wasn't ever going to be in it again. He'd been the driving force behind so many things she'd done, she felt completely hollow without him...  
  
There was a knock at the bedroom door, though it was open a crack. "Hello? Can I come in?"  
  
For a moment, Tifa was tempted to say no. She'd been crying, she hadn't brushed her hair all day, she was still in a t-shirt. Not that it mattered, she supposed, in the end.  
  
"I brought some stuff for your ankle."  
  
But this was Lily, and she doubted the woman cared a fig for her appearance. "Okay."  
  
Lily urged the door open with an elbow and entered without any more preamble, carrying a few things in her hands. "Water," she introduced the cup as she approached the bed. "Anti-inflammatories. A cold pack. And..." She shuffled the things in her grip. "...a tension bandage. I'll just leave them here, all right?" She put the cup down and then dumped the rest unceremoniously on the night table. "And if you get hungry, I made a quiche. Just shout if you want some."  
  
Lily didn't smile or pat the bed in a condescending way before leaving the room. She just met Tifa's eyes and gave a little nod as if they might've finished a business transaction. And when she turned and stopped, noticing something on the floor, she didn't say anything. She just picked up the broken pieces of the mug and walked out, pulling the door behind her until it was sitting ajar. Tifa didn't even have a second to feel renewed shame for throwing it.  
  
The bottle of anti-inflammatories was the first thing she investigated, and she was surprised at how empty it felt. When she opened it, she found only four pills clattering around at the bottom. Not enough, she realized, to overdose. Lily was no dummy. She swallowed two and then lay back, waiting for them to take effect.  
  
Vincent and Lily were talking again. Well, at least Lily was talking, and she thought she could hear Vincent's occasional monosyllabic replies. But she couldn't make out what they were saying. Sometimes, she remembered, it had been like that when they'd halted for the night. She in her tent, half-listening in unwilling silence to a hushed conversation, punctuated now and again by the contagious sound of Aeris' giggle. She'd hated Cloud sometimes for being so goddamn capricious; he'd had so many sides, no one had ever seen all of him at once. And Aeris had always had the best of him.  
  
Lily swore suddenly, like a small explosion. "Okay, but this time..." The rest of her words trailed off quietly.  
  
Tifa felt a flash of curiousity. What were they doing? After a moment of wondering, she convinced herself that she didn't care. But then, as the minutes passed and Lily seemed to get more and more agitated, she eventually found herself wrapping her ankle up with the tension bandage.  
  
She still didn't try to walk on it, but the bandage gave her a little more mobility if only because she knew the injury was stabilized. At the door, she peered out but there was nothing to see in the slowly darkening living room. She licked her lips as she hesitated. And then she opened the door.  
  
They were in the kitchen, sitting across from each other at the table. Lily was hunched over, supporting herself on her elbows as she held a hand of cards in front of her nose. In contrast, Vincent was slouched back in his chair a little, one leg stretched out casually so that his socked foot was only inches from one of Lily's bare ones. He wasn't even looking at the cards he held in metal fingers. Lily looked annoyed.  
  
"Okay, I call and raise you two." She pushed some gil into the middle of the table and then glanced up as Tifa made her way toward the light of the kitchen. "Hungry?"  
  
Tifa hesitated in the doorway before nodding and coming to sit in the closest chair. Vincent, she noticed, didn't look at her. His eyes briefly followed Lily as the woman got up to pull a plate and a fork from the counter, and then he simply stared at a spot in front of him until she returned to put the triangle of quiche in front of Tifa. His expression was blank, but Tifa received an impression of quiet offense. She turned to the food, grateful for the distraction; someone had once told her that it was easier to feel anger than shame, but right now that was bullshit.  
  
Lily sat down again and regained her cards. Before she settled back into the game, however, she searched around in the jacket she'd draped over the back of her chair and eventually came up with a crinkled package of cigarettes. "Do you mind?" she asked Tifa as she prepared to pull one out with her lips.  
  
Tifa shook her head. Lily drew one into her mouth and, after putting the package away, brought out a lighter. In a moment, she was taking a quick drag and blowing the smoke away from the table. Then she passed the cigarette across to Vincent. He accepted it with a nod and took a slow pull before breathing out toward the ceiling. The bitter smell of burning tobacco filled the room.  
  
Tifa watched him, surprised, as he sat up to hand the cigarette back. "So?"  
  
Lily sighed. "Well, let's see them." She put her hand down on the table; two kings, the queen of diamonds, and then the five and the three of spades.  
  
Without so much as blinking, Vincent lowered his hand to reveal three aces, the queen of hearts and the seven of clubs. Three of a kind to a one-pair, Tifa recognized. Lily threw her head back with a frustrated curse. "I thought you were bluffing!"  
  
A corner of Vincent's mouth twitched. "I wasn't."  
  
Lily scowled at him and turned to Tifa. "Never play poker with this man. The devil taught him how to play."  
  
The devil had also taught Barret how to play, Tifa thought. And Barret had taught her. Eventually, Biggs had stopped playing with them altogether because he'd always lost money, and Cid had learned early on to say no when Barret had brought out his cards. She cut off another piece of quiche with her fork and scooped it up.  
  
The pot was cleared away and Lily shuffled. As she went to deal, she asked, "You want to be dealt in?"  
  
Tifa put the forkful in her mouth and chewed. She wasn't here to play games. She wasn't supposed to be here at all. But she'd been sitting alone and miserable all day, and in a few moments the diversion of food would be gone. Maybe it would be all right to occupy herself with something else for a little while. "Okay. I don't have any gil."  
  
"Here, use this." Lily pushed some coins to her across the table and then started dealing.  
  
The game progressed quickly. The bet started at two, as set by Vincent, Lily called, and Tifa raised the bet by two. Vincent called and raised another two. Lily folded. Tifa called and glanced at Vincent over her cards. He was watching her, and he'd sat up a little in his chair. A spark of something, an old kind of competitiveness, flickered in Tifa's mind and she thought back to the nights, years and years ago, when she'd hunched around a table with Barret and Jesse and Wedge, drinking a beer and playing round after round of seven-card-stud. She raised the bet again.  
  
Vincent called without a word and raised yet another two. Tifa met the challenge and experienced a short-lived spurt of pride in the fact that she could still hold her expression so that she gave nothing away. And then she said, "I call your bluff. Show me your hand."  
  
"How do you know he's bluffing?" Lily asked quietly from where she'd been observing the game.  
  
Tifa ignored her for the moment and waited for Vincent to reveal his cards. After a small pause, he lowered them to the table. Nothing. The ten of clubs, two fours, and the six and three of diamonds.  
  
Tifa sat up triumphantly and dropped her cards down next to his: three queens, the seven of hearts and the two of spades. Three of a kind to a one-pair, but this time against him. She'd won. Quickly, she glanced up to see the others' reactions.  
  
Both of them were looking at her, and even Vincent seemed a little surprised. And only as it began to fade from her face did she realized she'd been grinning. She swallowed, suddenly feeling a little sick. "I think maybe I'll go to bed," she said quietly, lowering her eyes and pushing the cards together. As she picked up the small pile, the queen of hearts slipped from her grip and fell to the table. She went to grab it reactively and clashed hands with Vincent so that their fingers were momentarily entwined. Startled, she pulled away and glanced up.  
  
Vincent had also drawn his hand back as if he'd touched something hot and, as they stared at each other, Tifa thought she saw the briefest of frowns flit over his face.  
  
It had been entirely innocuous; the rough bump of skin to skin, the way strangers might do at a buffet when they're reaching for the same entree. But something about it had sent an unexpected flash through her, as if she might've been given a glimpse into his mind. Vincent had touched her earlier, of course, to help her up the stairs, but then they'd both adjusted to the idea of physical proximity toward a goal. Now, it had been thoroughly accidental, and she couldn't help but believe the result would've been the same had they bumped lips instead.  
  
Predictably, Vincent recovered his composure first and, as if to head off any more discomfort, he reached down to pick up the card. And then he handed the deck to Lily.  
  
"Yeah, I should get going." She stubbed her cigarette out on her own plate and gathered up her things. "The quiche is for you two to finish." If she'd noticed the sudden strain in the air, she said nothing about it. She merely stood and nodded at Tifa. "G'night." And then she turned to Vincent. "Night, Vince."  
  
He nodded in return and wordlessly got to his feet as Lily walked to the door. Once she was gone, he went to lock up behind her.  
  
And, while he was busy, Tifa pushed herself from the table and made her awkward way back into the bedroom. She wasn't sure what had just happened, but it made her uneasy just thinking about it.  
  
Last night, the door had been ajar. Tonight, she closed it firmly behind her.  
  
***  
  
I'm bad. I should really have been writing an essay for a summer course instead of this chapter. Oh well :P  
  
Thanks again to reviewers! You guys are great! A tip of the hat to kokonutsu for the heads-up about my tenses. All has been fixed, I hope! I also feel I should ask forgiveness just in case I screwed up anything concerning the poker game. I've never actually played. *grin* 


	5. Still Warm

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Four: Still Warm  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Vincent was not asleep. Vincent rarely slept.  
  
It had been three years, and many things had changed in him, around him, without him. Hard at first to find a rhythm where he fit, and then easier as he'd settled into a routine of work and homelife. Not exciting all of the time, not pleasant all of the time, but predictable and with its merits. Hired first by a council in Nibelheim to keep monsters out of the area, and then recommended to a council in Kalm for the same reason. A sharpshooter, though no one cared how he got rid of the threat, and it kept *them* satisfied if he transformed for the taste of blood. Still a small appetite for death, he admitted, thanks to Hojo.  
  
Though he was far from jealous of mortals who could take their own life, he thought with a lingering twinge of anger that Tifa had simply assumed she knew how he felt. Maybe he had been envious once; maybe he would be again in years and years when he was tired of living. But not now. Now that he had a life that suited him: a job atoning by protecting humans from death outside their time; a place to live where he was basically left alone -- except for Lily, though three years had taught her where to draw the line with him; enough humanity left to relax sometimes, though he was forced to admit that Lily had been a large and subtle influence in that area, too. Friendship was not something he had ever sought anywhere before, and so he'd never realized how rewarding it could be. Nice to feel for once that someone cared whether or not he came home.  
  
But some things had stayed the same. Waiting behind his eyelids for moments of soft unconsciousness, something not even the strongest man could consistently fight, were the nightmares. As surely as he had black hair, stood six feet, lived in a body that was not always his own; as surely as he had a past and had once hunted in the city -- civilized man existing in a primitive world where seventy floors were protection and a blue suit meant you were at the top of the food chain -- he still had nightmares. Still dreamed of his guilt. Nothing, he was beginning to believe, would ever be enough atonement for what had happened to Lucrecia.  
  
He was on the couch again, waiting out the night. Tifa had jumped off of a bridge, and somehow landed herself in his bed, in his home, disrupting his routine. If only she'd waited five minutes, he might never have known what she was trying to do, and he could've continued on with his own life, blissfully unaware...  
  
But that wasn't fair. In the end, he couldn't blame her for the fact that he'd rescued her. His own conscience; his own revived sense of right and wrong, and leaving her would've been wrong. Honour-bound by the memory of a woman who could perform a perfect round-house kick, who had sometimes cursed under her breath when she'd thought no one could hear her, who could play poker with a straight face and firmly trounce him...  
  
Who'd worn glasses that had never stayed put on her nose, who'd spoken so firmly about what she'd been doing that to take her from her work would've ripped her in two, who'd never complained about the trials of a painful, and ultimately fatal, pregnancy...  
  
He pushed himself up from the couch and took a long breath before stepping into the kitchen. The quiche was where they'd left it on the counter and he fished a piece onto a plate. He wished Lily had left her cigarettes, but since she hadn't, eating would have to do. Something to do with his hands, to keep himself occupied.  
  
If he hadn't felt the need to stay close by in case Tifa tried something, he would've walked. Walked and walked into the night, and returned as Lily was shaking out her mat in the morning, still in her nightie, and she would ask where he'd been (as always) and he'd just say (as always), 'Walking.' And she'd warn him about the chill night air as if he hadn't heard her the last time.  
  
All of his routines had been disrupted.  
  
He didn't want to think about it, about the similarities; he was no psychologist. Tifa and Lucrecia...both strong women reduced to courting death. But could he deny it any longer? Was there another explanation anymore? Save Tifa to atone for Lucrecia? What did he think he could do differently this time?  
  
Fool... She'd put her cards down on the table, called his bluff with an effervescent grin he hadn't seen for three years, and then bumped his hand...  
  
The soft brush of fingertip kissing fingertip as she'd passed him a cup of coffee, and then she'd stared up at him in surprise with her perfect green bespectacled eyes as she'd felt the electricity between them, what people called chemistry.  
  
Tifa was not Lucrecia. He had not been attracted to Tifa. His mind was simply substituting. It was the only explanation that made sense.  
  
He finished his quiche and dumped the plate in the sink. Dishes to do tomorrow. And he would have to ask her for his t-shirt back, because he was afraid to think now what the sight of long, bare legs might bring to mind.  
  
***  
  
Tifa had fallen asleep with the help of the last two anti-inflammatories, and when she woke it was to the renewal of the pain. With a frustrated groan at the ache, she kicked the blankets off with her whole foot and sat up to touch the swelling. Her skin was puffy and it felt hot to the touch. Gingerly, she stroked it with her fingers, willing the hurt to go away. Why did everything always feel worse at night?  
  
She lay back down, and then after a few moments folded the pillow up and placed it under her ankle, to elevate it again. But the pain remained and she had no good thoughts to block it out with. She wouldn't get back to sleep like this. Not that she hadn't gotten used to insomnia.  
  
It was so easy, in the night, to start thinking about *him*. Just to lay on her back and remember being curled up beside him in the beginning, before he'd become so distant and she'd become so quiet and hurt and angry. To remember being there with her head in the hollow of his shoulder, feeling like she'd come home after years of searching...after the fire in Nibelheim.  
  
It always came back to this place, she thought suddenly. Nibelheim was where she always hurt the most, like a scar that was still ripped open underneath, stretching like a long, red, smiling mouth through the skin of her chest, abdomen. An ugly scar, though Cloud had once said it was a testament to her strength, that she'd survived Sephiroth's wound.  
  
But now her strength had been sapped away, and she would never recover. She had no reason to recover. How was it selfish to want to get away from this? How was it wrong?  
  
Her ankle was burning and she sat up with a sigh. Ice. She needed ice. Then maybe she'd be able to sleep for another few hours and at least escape her own thoughts. Though that would leave her exposed to dreams. To exchange one poisoned cup for another. It was a battle she'd accepted for awhile, and was now trapped in because of man who believed that time opened doors and no one stayed trapped forever...  
  
Damn him. For all of going through hell, Vincent didn't know a thing.  
  
Tifa hopped to the door and opened it quietly. Vincent was out here somewhere, she knew, in the darkness. She didn't want to see him, to feel that mixture of anger and shame that he made her feel, as if he was seeing right through her, as if he was correct about her when she knew he wasn't. Maybe he'd changed after all; maybe he'd recovered from being the silent, faintly suicidal man she'd always taken him for. But that didn't mean everyone recovered...he couldn't assume that everyone recovered...  
  
It wasn't fair to assume that she would recover, to pull her away from the arms of death as if she was a child who didn't know what was best for herself...  
  
She wasn't a child.  
  
Though it was frightening to believe that there were parts of her that wanted to live. A lonely full-grown woman, abandoned for a year, and god how she missed the feel of being next to someone else. And it had taken the collision of strong, thin fingers against her own to awaken that lonely yearning for someone just to hold her...  
  
God it was frightening, and she didn't want to think about it.  
  
There was some light coming into the apartment from the windows, from streetlamps and stars and the moon, but things were still shadowy and indistinct. Slowly, she made her way forward, toward the kitchen. When she saw the back of the couch appearing out of the gloom, she put out a hand to steady herself against it. No Vincent yet, though she could fairly feel the room breathing and watching her.  
  
"Do you need something?"  
  
He was on the couch, blended perfectly into the shadow until all she could see were his eyes, staring red out of the blackness. She blinked and turned away. "Some ice."  
  
She heard him stand, and then there was the loud rush of cooling units in the silence as he opened the freezer door. In a few moments he was standing a foot or so in front of her with a bag of ice that he must've prepared earlier. She took it from him, unsure of how to feel. It still felt wrong to say thank you, as if the words might somehow stretch to take in the rescue.  
  
He moved back to the couch. "Was that all?"  
  
"Yes." It was barely a whisper and she cleared her throat. "Yes." She turned and began to head in the direction of the bedroom.  
  
"Tifa."  
  
It sounded strange. Cloud had never said just her name to get her attention. 'Hey, Tifa, we need some more bread. Hey, Tifa, did you use up the last of the toothpaste? Hey, Tifa, is there any mail?' Hey, Tifa -- pal, buddy, substitute. Hey, Tifa, I'll sleep with you, but, hey, my heart's divided and you've got the smaller piece. Hey, Tifa, do you remember when we were kids? Boy, was I screwed up. Thank god I'm not like that any more...  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I'd like that shirt back tomorrow."  
  
Her own clothes were on the floor of his bedroom because she hadn't seen a point to changing into them. But it was Vincent's shirt, and if he wanted it back... "Okay."  
  
The ice felt good, another shock of cold on her body, as close as she could get to the impact of freezing water after the hungry pull of gravity. Healing, hurting, healing. She wished she really was cold-blooded.  
  
Maybe that was what had saved Vincent. Maybe he'd just learned how not to feel anything.  
  
Warm-blooded enough to save her, though, however misguided the attempt...  
  
***  
  
Well, not much action in this chapter, huh? Hope I'm not boring people to death, or repeating Tifa's feelings too often. I, personally, have never been suicidal and maybe I'm just trying to justify what Tifa is going through and why she feels the way she does. Does that make sense? Crazy... Thanks again for reviews and critiques! You guys are wonderful!  
  
Shadow Reaver, I {insert heart} you. You are so encouraging and you say the nicest things. But when are you going to update? :P  
  
P.S./ I wrote a little ditty about myself for my bio, 'cuz I was bored at work. Go read it if you like stupid poetry. La la la... 


	6. Ice and Fire

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Five: Ice and Fire  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Something had changed. Not a big thing, Tifa knew; not at first. Vincent still basically ignored her unless she made an attempt to gain his attention; Lily still made most of the conversation and the food; there were still subdued poker games, though Tifa was now content just to watch them. But something had definitely changed between herself and Vincent, as if they'd accidentally shared some terrible secret that they would rather have kept to themselves.  
  
And it was three days before she was sure she knew what it was.  
  
It had all started with the poker game, touching his hand. That much she'd been fairly certain of from the beginning. Both of them had been uncomfortable with the contact -- she, because it had awakened something in her she'd unconsciously wanted to bury away; Vincent, because...well, maybe because he just didn't like being touched. He was still Vincent, whatever else had changed about him.  
  
But it went beyond that. Something in her had recognized it, even if she hadn't, not right away.  
  
Vincent was attracted to her.  
  
She was weak; her body was lost in her oversized clothing; she'd neglected to brush her hair or shower since she'd arrived -- what was the point?  
  
But there it was, as unbelievable as it seemed, in the way he glanced at her when he thought she wouldn't notice, in the way he quickly averted his eyes when she *did* notice, in the very way he avoided her. She'd had enough interest from men in her life to know the signs.  
  
And it frightened her.  
  
She'd learned to ignore the following eyes in the bar, and she'd been able to deal with anyone who had gotten too bold. Sometimes she'd flirted a little; sometimes she'd enjoyed it. (Sometimes she'd hated it, when they were drunk with pinching fingers and lewd tongues. Cloud had upbraided a couple of guys; most of the time he'd just shrugged it off. 'They're men, Tifa. That's what men do. We're a bunch of horny slobs most of the time.')  
  
But Vincent was certainly not someone to flirt with, and somehow it was difficult to simply ignore him, the feel of him watching with his particularly red eyes that seemed to know too much. And so she had no idea how to react, what to say. Should she accuse him? Ask him to stop? It was obvious enough that his attraction was making him just as uncomfortable as it was making her. Though it didn't seem to be inciting him to let her go.  
  
Then, the third night, she had a dream. And it all but made up her mind for her, making willing and unwilling only words.  
  
Most dreams now were about Cloud. Nightmares, really. Sometimes Cloud was leaving; sometimes he was coming back and saying horrible things to her that she couldn't deny. Sometimes she was tearing through her house in Kalm, searching frantically for something that she knew wasn't there, but she had to find before it was too late.  
  
This dream was about Nibelheim: burning charred buildings, burning bodies, burning sky. Barret was there, standing behind her, and though she was crying she didn't want to turn to him for comfort. Because he was busy. Busy, as a good father should be, comforting Marlene.  
  
Vincent was also there, standing beside her and dressed in charred black and flaming red, just like she remembered. He, too, was watching Nibelheim burn. She didn't expect him to pay any attention to her. He'd never given any of them any particular recognition.  
  
But he turned to look at her, and something in his eyes told her he wanted to say something. And then he was speaking, but she couldn't hear. She couldn't hear him over the sound of Nibelheim burning...  
  
And then the dream changed, and she was in her house in Kalm. And Vincent was speaking. "Why do you live here when the house is empty?"  
  
She shrugged and walked away, angry at him for not minding his own business. But things weren't where they were supposed to be. It did seem unusually empty. And then she suddenly remembered that there was something important she needed. Oh god, where was it? It would still be here, wouldn't it?  
  
"What are you looking for?"  
  
"Leave me alone, Vincent."  
  
"Are you looking for these?"  
  
She turned. Vincent, dressed in black slacks and a button-up, his hair hanging simply around his face. He was holding her shoes in his human hand.  
  
And she knew. Her shoes. That's what she'd been missing. She looked at him in surprise. "Where did you find these?"  
  
"You left them on the bridge." He was meeting her eyes, and there was something warm there. So warm.  
  
He was so warm. She was like ice, but his lips were warm, melting away the frozen agony in her body...  
  
And then she woke up, cold and craving heat.  
  
***  
  
"Her ankle is getting better. She'll be able to walk on it in a couple of days." Lily placed a mug of tea beside him on the table and then sat down across from him with her own. She took a sip. "You going to raise me, or what?"  
  
Vincent pushed four gil into the pot. Lily raised an eyebrow. "You're sure of yourself." She took another sip and then put the mug down to focus on her cards. "How in hell could she have known you were bluffing. I still can't tell."  
  
Vincent didn't feel like smirking. It was late; Tifa had gone to bed hours ago. This last game and then he would ask Lily to leave. He was too distracted to play, and he didn't doubt Lily had noticed.  
  
"What are you going to do with her?"  
  
He glanced at Lily from where he'd been staring idly at the door of a cupboard. "Nothing. Let her stay until she works things out."  
  
"Yeah, and how long do you think that'll take?"  
  
He twitched a corner of his mouth. "Are you going to raise my rent?"  
  
She scowled at him. "No, shit. Don't be stupid." She turned in her chair and fished around for her cigarettes. She handed him one, and then passed him the lighter when she was done with it. "She needs more than just a place to stay."  
  
Vincent sighed and took a drag from the cigarette. So many memories associated with the leisure of smoking, nearly all of them devoid of serious conversation.  
  
"I wouldn't say anything, but you got me involved. She needs someone to talk to her, and it doesn't have to be you. I can't imagine you stringing a full dozen words together." She shifted the cards around in her hand. "Well, okay, I call." She pushed four pieces of gil into the middle of the table. "I may have to raise your rent just to get my money back." She lowered her cards: a flush, all diamonds.  
  
And then Vincent felt like smirking. If he was going to lose a hand, of course it would be the last of the evening. Three of a kind, all kings, but it didn't beat a flush. Lily raised her eyebrows and grinned. "Well, look at that. That's three games for me against your...what, eighteen?"  
  
"Seventeen."  
  
"Well, I'm glad one of us is keeping track." She stood from her chair and, sticking the cigarette into the corner of her mouth, gathered up the cards and the gil. "Are you going back to Kalm anytime?"  
  
It was his job. He couldn't play watchman forever. He shrugged.  
  
"'Cause if you are, I'll take her. She can live with me downstairs."  
  
It would solve a couple of problems, if Lily could keep a diligent eye on her. And Lily was nothing if not diligent. He nodded.  
  
"'Kay, just give me the word, then. G'night, Vince."  
  
"Good night."  
  
The couch wasn't exactly welcoming, so he spent a few minutes finishing his cigarette and the tea Lily had made him. And then, craving some activity that would keep his mind occupied, he turned to the mug Tifa had broken.  
  
A clean break. The porcelain was too strong to have come apart so that it couldn't be fixed. He sat back down at the table with the glue and began to set it back together.  
  
The door to the bedroom opened suddenly and Tifa came limping out, toward the kitchen. He couldn't see her at first, but he could hear her, and then she was arriving in the doorway. Through the doorway.  
  
She was crying, her lips trembling as she sobbed under her breath. Vincent quickly looked back at the mug. Even tear-stained and distraught, there was *something* about her. And he suddenly remembered how Lucrecia's tears had always affected him. Dammit.  
  
"Do you need something?"  
  
He wasn't sure what to expect. Maybe she wanted to talk; maybe she wanted to yell; maybe she just didn't want to be alone.  
  
What she did want surprised him. Caught off-guard so that, although it was awkward and impeded by the table, her ankle, his arm, she still managed to break through and kiss him solidly. Her mouth was dry, though he could feel the moisture of a tear shivering on her upper lip. It only lasted for a second and then he darted his face away, trying to deny in his mind that for a moment he'd been tempted...  
  
She was nearly falling in his lap, trying to keep her weight off of her ankle. "I'm cold," she whispered. "Please..."  
  
Not Lucrecia. It was barely even Tifa, so far gone into that first dark grief, grasping for some warmth, some life, some respite from the pain. Though she was still grasping in the wrong places. What she wanted was a balm that would only irritate the wound.  
  
And from him, it would only be poison.  
  
He turned away, shrugged her off, pushed out of the chair. "Go back to bed."  
  
She made an angry sound, somewhere between a sob and a scream, and forced herself up against the table. Her eyes were suddenly hard and dark, the blank windows of an abandoned building. "Stop it! Stop ordering me around! Stop...controlling me! Fuck you! I don't want to go back to bed! I want..." She stared at him for a moment, faltered, and then broke down crying. "I don't want to be here," she nearly whimpered. "You save me like you want to help me, and then you...push me away, lock me away. What the hell do you expect from me?"  
  
Lily had been right. It wasn't enough just to keep her here. It was time to get back to work.  
  
At his silence, Tifa's eyes became stony again and she moved to a drawer, opened it, rifled through it.  
  
But he'd hidden all of his knives, and his guns.  
  
She opened another drawer, and then a third. And then she screamed out her frustration. "Goddammit, why are you doing this to me?" she demanded. "What's it to you if I die? You didn't care about us in Avalanche! Why now?"  
  
She was just venting. He wasn't surprised this time when she hobbled over and tried to attack him with her fists. But she was weak and tired and out of practice, and it took very little to grab her wrists and pin them to her sides. "Tifa, stop it."  
  
She struggled and glared at him with something close to hatred. And then her expression crumbled and she sagged down. He let her slip to the floor where she sobbed openly beneath the curtain of her tousled hair.  
  
And when he crouched down beside her, almost a minute later, intending to urge her to her feet and then back into the room, she seemed to misinterpret the gesture. And she threw herself into his arms and just cried.  
  
***  
  
I'm so glad to see familiar names! Highwaywoman and Distance, thank you for your delicious reviews. If there are other reviewers in here who also reviewed for 'Does Fate Allow...', I'm sorry! I'll mention you another time. I love and appreciate you all! I was half-expecting this fic to bomb... Thank you for encouraging me, everyone, to keep writing it. I'm having a blast! 


	7. Waking Up

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Six: Waking Up  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Tifa couldn't remember the next morning how she'd gotten back to bed. Crying until she couldn't catch her breath, until she felt sick to her stomach, until it had all boiled down in the weary end to sitting on the floor with the feel of someone's arms, someone's shoulder under her cheek, the scent of a barely familiar shampoo. Not exactly comforting or comfortable, but steady and present. And, whether she wanted to admit it or not, safe.  
  
Safer, somehow, than crying alone. Months and months of trying to keep up pretenses, trying -- god, trying so hard -- to keep that last wall from falling, afraid of what was on the other side. Convinced there was no way out except a bridge at night; then rescued, like a dying bird saved from impact.  
  
And then pushed days past her limit, compelled into hasty action with the fanciful thought of a kiss to wake her; something in her desperate not to die, desperate not to break. A dream of life, maybe, after death.  
  
But, denied. Pushed away, locked away from those things she thought she needed. No warmth in those unwilling lips; no knives in those convenient drawers.  
  
And nearly deafened by the sound of the barrier collapsing, and it almost sounded like crying. But it was okay to cry, because there were arms balancing her as she teetered on that fatal edge. Not that she could stop what had been put into motion. The wall shook; the wall crumbled. The wall fell away.  
  
And she remained, even if she stood at ground zero.  
  
The curtains weren't open, but she could tell it wasn't quite sunrise. The fragile chill in the air of early dawn, the rumpled feel of blankets not quite covering her, one or two birds twittering outside. She didn't notice them consciously. Things felt different this morning. She was a tea-kettle, empty now of cold, stale water. She was a child, too weary now to cry and have tantrums. She was a dreamer who had wept herself awake.  
  
And, somewhere inside of her was a woman who had once schemed with Barret, who had trained because she'd wanted to, who hadn't really expected to ever see a boy named Cloud Strife again. And, yet, she'd been happy.  
  
She hadn't wanted to die. She'd been strong.  
  
Though Zangan had told her, 'Be careful, girl. You let your heart get in front of your head and it'll only bring you shame and defeat.'  
  
He'd been right.  
  
But when had she let defeat leave her on the ground before?  
  
She'd drained her heart fighting for a man, but against him. Two years, and then a year of trying not to cry, learning not to cry, and convincing herself she could do it alone.  
  
Her proud heart in front of her head.  
  
And in the end, her eyes had been forced open, not by Zangan, not by Barret, not even by the first frightening time she'd considered the bridge. But by a man who had forced her to come to the realization by herself.  
  
Damn him. The hard way. The way he had probably come through it.  
  
Her ankle ached; it was still sore. But she could walk on it. And she was going to. She may only have slept for a few hours, but she felt more awake now than she had in a long time and she knew she wouldn't sleep again. Slowly, she made her way to the door, and then opened it.  
  
Most mornings so far, she'd discovered Vincent on the couch or in the kitchen, often looking like he'd recently come out of the shower. This morning he was standing by the door, dressed in a long black coat and a pair of dark hiking boots. He was tying his hair back into a quick ponytail as she stepped into the room and he turned at the movement with the effortless haste of someone used to being wary. He seemed surprised to see her there.  
  
"Do you need something?"  
  
The question had almost become his ritual greeting. "No."  
  
For a moment he seemed unsure what to make of this answer, but then he turned back to the task at hand and slipped his hair under the collar of the back of his coat, where it presumably would stay out of the way. And then he stepped toward the door.  
  
He was leaving, and Tifa felt sure that it was because of last night. The thought that maybe he felt he could no longer deal with this gave her a flash of anger; if so, he should never have rescued her. He, of all people, should have known what he was getting into. But then she began to wonder if it was because of the kiss; graceless, artless, senseless, running on pain and fear and need. Perhaps he thought it might happen again, and perhaps he didn't trust himself if it did. He knew it was wrong and would only hurt her, hurt both of them if he had a momentary lapse of self-control.  
  
Her fault. Her fault he was leaving his own house. And she felt ashamed, guilty, empty, lonely, and suddenly, strangely close to this subdued man who she'd never known, had been too afraid to know, and who had only been trying to help her...  
  
"I'm sorry," she blurted out toward his back.  
  
He stopped with his hand on the door knob and turned to look at her, one eyebrow climbing slowly as if he wasn't sure he'd heard right.  
  
She felt her face flush. Without the blanket of her anger, she felt uncomfortably exposed. But this time it wasn't like all of the times she'd apologized to Cloud, not really sure what she was apologizing for. "I'm sorry about last night." Her throat was a little hoarse from crying. Her voice sounded quiet to her own ears, as if she might not have used it in a year. "About...you know."  
  
For a few seconds he gave no sign of having heard her, and then he gave a shrug. "Forget it." And then he opened the door.  
  
"But..." She was sure he just wanted to leave, but this interruption felt important. "...where are you going?"  
  
He stopped again, on the door step, and said without turning, "Lily will explain." And then he started down the stairs. A moment later, as he opened the door at the bottom, she heard Lily's voice, coming clearer as she stepped into the stairwell.  
  
"Bye, Vince. Be careful, okay?"  
  
There was no answer that Tifa could hear, and then Lily was coming up the steps. Before she arrived, Tifa started toward the kitchen. After a few seconds, the woman's brisk footsteps were behind her.  
  
"Hey, good morning. I'm here to invite you to come and stay with me, if you want."  
  
Tifa stopped walking at the table and nodded without turning her head. And then she reached for the thing that had grabbed her attention.  
  
It was what Vincent had been working on in the night, the mug she'd broken. Intact again, and as the glue continued to set it would become steadier. Though it would always bear the scar where it had been cracked in two.  
  
***  
  
Yeah, this chapter's kind of short, but you know (well, maybe you don't -- or maybe some of you do...well, whatever) how it is when you just come to a point and you know that whatever you've been doing is done? Well, this is where I reached that point. This chapter is done. Not the story. Just the chapter. Hope Tifa's 'change of heart' didn't seem too sudden or confusing...  
  
And I changed a couple of things in the last chapter (not big things; I'm just a petty perfectionist) because I wasn't happy with it. Still not completely satisfied with it, but I'm going to move on. Yup. Thanks for reviews! 


	8. Twenty Questions

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Seven: Twenty Questions  
  
by thelittletree  
  
The first thing Lily did when they arrived in her half of the house was to draw Tifa a bath. She didn't ask if Tifa wanted one; she didn't make any comment on the way she looked or, perhaps, smelled. She just disappeared into the bathroom and started running the water. And then she handed Tifa a brush, some clean clothes of her own that she must've set aside earlier, and ushered her gently in the right direction.  
  
It was such a simple thing. Hot water, soap, shampoo; she hated the way she could feel her ribs, her sharp hipbones under her fingers. Too thin. But it felt good to scrub and scrub and scrub at her skin until the old, dead layer was flaking off. And it felt good to submerge her toes, bend her knees until most of her body was resting in heat. Though she couldn't quite make herself dunk her head under. She still felt fragile, and she wasn't sure her lungs could take it right now, this early in the morning.  
  
Lily was sometimes outside the door, left open a crack, probably listening for the sound of splashing water, just to make sure. And this time, Tifa didn't mind. Maybe because it was Lily. Maybe because something had changed in the night. Maybe because she was afraid she might slip back into the nightmare if she was left alone again.  
  
Lily made tea and pancakes for breakfast, and they sat in her cluttered kitchen as they ate, surrounded by an atmosphere of cozy idiosyncrasy: a white table cloth dotted with patterns of fruit; pictures of far-away landscapes on the refrigerator door held up with magnets shaped like small pencils and teacups and cookies; a jar of negligible change on the counter; towels and pans and oven mits suspended from nails at various altitudes on the walls. *This* felt like a home, Tifa decided.  
  
Once they were both sipping at their tea, Lily sat back a little in her chair and cleared her throat. "Did Vincent tell you why he was leaving this morning?"  
  
Tifa shook her head. Lily didn't look surprised as she rubbed at a drop of tea that had seeped into the table cloth. "He works between here and Kalm, killing the monsters. Not a lot them anymore, most of them have learned to avoid the area. But it's nice to know someone's patrolling." She gave up on the tea stain and slipped a hand through her feathery hair. "He's usually back within a few days."  
  
Tifa nodded and swirled the tea around in her mug.  
  
"Can I ask you something?"  
  
Tifa glanced up from the brown liquid lapping against the rim, feeling her stomach tighten. "I...what do you want to know?"  
  
Lily shrugged a little. "Nothing says you have to answer."  
  
But sometimes refusing to answer said just as much. Tifa pursed her lips and took another sip from the mug.  
  
Seeming to read her discomfort, Lily stood from the table and returned after a moment with a pack of cards Tifa recognized. "Here. You can still say no. But I'll split the deck, and whoever draws the high card asks a question."  
  
She evidently had something with cards. Even though she primarily lost against Vincent, she kept coming back to his kitchen table. Tifa thought a moment. Nothing said she had to answer, and there were things she was curious about, too. She nodded. "Okay."  
  
Lily cut the deck in half and handed her her share of the cards. And then she drew from her own pile and came up with the ten of spades. Tifa nibbled for a second on her lip before lifting up her own card. The four of hearts. She sighed a little and lay it on the table.  
  
Lily flipped the card to the bottom of her pile. "Where do you know Vincent from?"  
  
Tifa was a little surprised. She'd been expecting a question about that night in Kalm, on the bridge. "Well...how much do you know about him? Do you know...what he was doing three years ago?"  
  
"You mean Avalanche? Yeah, I read the papers, saw the news. Were you part of that, too?"  
  
"That's two questions."  
  
Lily scoffed a little. "It's part of the first question. You still haven't answered."  
  
Tifa felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. "Yes, I was."  
  
Lily raised her eyebrows, though Tifa could read no skepticism in her expression. And then she picked up a package of cigarettes from the table and pulled one out with her lips. "This okay? You don't smoke, do you?"  
  
"No. It's all right."  
  
She lit the end and took a drag. "Okay, next cards."  
  
They drew again, and Lily had the high card once more. She blew some smoke to her left before asking, "Ex-lovers?"  
  
Tifa guessed that her shock must've been comically obvious because Lily laughed suddenly. And then Tifa wondered if the woman might've noticed Vincent's uneasy attraction. If they had been ex-lovers, she imagined it would've explained that, and the reason he'd rescued her in the first place.  
  
"No, not...ex-lovers."  
  
Lily shrugged. "Just a question. Next cards."  
  
Tifa drew the high card this time and, feeling the need for a reprisal against this woman who seemed too blunt to even know the meaning of embarrassment, asked, "Are you...were you and Vincent lovers?"  
  
Lily laughed again, a throaty kind of chuckle that lasted for a few seconds. The woman wasn't that much older than Tifa herself, and though she was by no means dainty or what society might've deemed 'beautiful', with her shrewd eyes and a strong chin, she certainly wasn't unattractive. Or without her charm.  
  
Lily was shaking her head a little as she looked down at the table, her laughter dying away. And then she glanced back at Tifa, her eyes alight with wry amusement. "That man has enough skeletons in his closet to fill a mausoleum, and I doubt he'd know what to do with my pants if he could get into them."  
  
Tifa grinned despite herself and looked back into her tea. It was indeed difficult to imagine Vincent being romantic, in any sense of the word.  
  
"Next cards."  
  
The high card went, again, to Tifa. She had to think a moment. "Where did you live before you moved here?"  
  
"Who says I moved here?"  
  
Tifa gave her a level look. She'd seen Nibelheim burn with her own eyes. Lily dropped her gaze after a second and shrugged one shoulder, nodding. "Most people try and deny there was a Shinra cover-up. Midgar. In the slums, sector four, with my husband." The word 'husband' was hardly out of her mouth before she was taking another drag from her cigarette. And then she sighed the smoke back out, her eyes still lowered. "Next cards."  
  
Lily's turn. "What was life in Kalm like?" She said it simply, as if it was just another question.  
  
Tifa felt something heavy settle on her chest and she took a few slow sips of her tea, though it was cooling quickly and she needn't have been so cautious. "It...it was..." She licked her lips and swallowed. "It used to be...good. I...had a bar..."  
  
"A bar? Serving drinks?"  
  
Tifa nodded.  
  
"Sounds interesting." She reached for her pile and Tifa was glad not to have to elaborate.  
  
A king against Lily's nine. Tifa took a breath. "Where is your husband?"  
  
Lily didn't look surprised by the question. She took another draw on the cigarette before answering. "Dead. We were living in Midgar when the meteor hit."  
  
Tifa had half expected something like that and she pursed her lips. "I'm sorry."  
  
Lily shrugged and glanced up to meet her eyes. "These things happen. Besides, my husband wouldn't have liked Vincent. Too quiet." She looked across the room and chuckled a little. "He never would've offered him the upstairs apartment." She gave another faint sigh and reached for her cards again. "One more?"  
  
"Okay."  
  
Lily smiled a little over her ace. "Never had this kind of luck with Vincent," she said.  
  
Tifa didn't know whether she meant luck at cards, or luck at getting him to answer questions.  
  
"Have you ever been married?"  
  
Tifa shook her head and then came close to finishing off her tea in a couple of gulps. "Not married, but...I did have...someone..." It was coming out wrong and her hands were starting to tremble. She shook her head again.  
  
"I think you need to get outside."  
  
Tifa glanced up. "What?"  
  
Lily was turned around in her chair, looking out of a window. "The sun's up, now. I've got a garden out back. Not much; a couple of perennials, some rows of tomatoes and beans. Needs to be watered and weeded everyday. You want to keep me company?"  
  
Tifa fingered a strand of drying hair and thought about the sun and the grass and the breeze. And then she consciously pushed all other thoughts away.  
  
"Okay."  
  
***  
  
Vincent grimaced at the long gash on the underside of his forearm as he peeled off the sleeve of his shirt. He dipped a cloth into the spray of water from the bathroom tap and rang it out between his metal fingers. It wasn't too often, now, that he came away with injuries.  
  
The day had been successful, though -- gil enough to get a room in Kalm for the night and still enough to pay Lily, and who knew what tomorrow would bring? Another fight, maybe, in the air or on the ground, half caught up in *their* excitement for the hunt, for blood...  
  
He gingerly wiped the wound clean, and then bound it. And then he spent a moment studying the rip in his shirt and the one in the arm of his coat. Unfortunate, but not irreparable. He'd have to ask Lily for needle and thread again.  
  
The time difference was not so great from Nibelheim. An hour or so ahead of them. It was probably only just turning to nine o'clock there. Vincent thought about this as he began to try and scrub the dark, angry stain out of his shirt sleeve. It wasn't often that he called. Maybe twice in three years, and those had been particular circumstances.  
  
Some of the blood was coming out, but it would have to be soaked. He rinsed the cloth out and hung it to dry on a rack behind him. And then he sighed. If he was going to call, it would have to be now, before he left his shirt in the sink.  
  
Though it wasn't as if he couldn't trust Lily. It wasn't as if she would have been careless, left Tifa alone long enough to let her...  
  
Dammit.  
  
"Can I use your phone?"  
  
The desk clerk glanced up from the ledger he'd been scribbling in and then gave a tight smile of recognition. "Of course." He lifted the phone into view. "The number?"  
  
In a few moments, Vincent was listening to the tone of Lily's phone ringing in Nibelheim.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"It's me."  
  
"I thought it might be."  
  
He glanced around as if someone might've been trying to listen in and then cursed his own hesitation. "Is Tifa there?" He winced inwardly at how the question sounded.  
  
"Yeah, you want to talk to her?"  
  
"No." He knew he'd answered too quickly.  
  
Lily was silent for a moment and he could almost see her cocking a speculative eyebrow. "Well, we're doing fine. Spent the morning in the garden and spent the afternoon making a stew and getting the dirt out from under our fingernails."  
  
He found it hard to picture Tifa -- the Tifa he'd encountered the previous evening -- digging around in a garden or puttering around a kitchen making food.  
  
"So...was that all you wanted?" He could nearly hear the smug smile. It made him feel foolish.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Okay, well, we're heading to bed. G'night, Vince."  
  
"Good night."  
  
He handed the receiver back to the clerk and then headed back up to his room.  
  
He was a fool. A damn fool.  
  
***  
  
Uh, I don't have anything to say. Thanks for reviews, though! *hugs all of the reviews to her chest* 


	9. Weeds and Thread

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Eight: Weeds and Thread  
  
by thelittletree  
  
It was strange to wake up in Lily's apartment now, Tifa thought; strange to feel comfortable with leaving the bedroom, with wandering around, with making small talk while she ate. Strange, too, not to find herself completely alone in a house that was too big for one. Strange to smile a little.  
  
Strange not to have the memory of nightmares following her into the day, and yet to still have that ache, as if her heart wasn't beating in the right place. Though she was trying not to think, and Lily had a way of keeping her busy enough to smile.  
  
There were no clouds in the sky. The sun peeking through the trees and mountains, bouncing off of the brick houses and sluicing from glinting windows, was a welcome warmth on her back in the chill of the morning; her pale fingers, like long skinny roots in the cool dark dirt of Lily's garden, felt strong and qualified. She'd never tried her hand at gardening before, never had the inclination, but with Lily beside her, both of them on their knees in soil-smudged pants and long, floppy straw hats, she felt as if she might've been daydreaming about it for years. Something cathartic about pulling the weeds away so that the rest of the plants could grow properly, about sprinkling water from a can -- not enough to drown them, just enough to let them drink. Something about maintaining the health of these fragile flowers and vegetables in the early spring so that they might one day provide beauty and nourishment to others.  
  
She couldn't help smiling.  
  
Lily hummed tunelessly as she worked, completely lost in the flow of her hands, moving with a kind of rhythm the plants might've taught her. As the sun continued to climb, she sat up and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. "Hot work, sometimes," she commented.  
  
Tifa nodded. "But I like it."  
  
"Good." Lily stood with a grunt and a few popping joints. "What say we take a little break?"  
  
This meant she needed a cigarette. Tifa got up from her knees and clapped her hands free of loose dirt.  
  
Lily had two mismatched chairs set up in her back yard. And as they sat down Tifa wondered again as she had the day before if Vincent had ever joined Lily on his knees, plugging away in the soil. She found it hard to picture, though, without feeling the urge to laugh. He didn't seem to cook for himself (she couldn't remember a single time he'd offered to help with any meal three years ago) and he appeared to need nagging about cleaning his half of the house. Gardening would probably be a frivolous activity to him, something not worth his time.  
  
"Thinking about something?"  
  
Tifa turned out of her thoughts and glanced at Lily. "Not really. Or, well... " She interrupted herself with a shrug, feeling a little awkward as if Lily might speculate about her interest. "How long has Vincent lived here?"  
  
Lily put her lighter away and puffed out a mist of smoke. "Almost three years, I guess." She frowned in a moment of reflection and scratched at her nose with a dirty nail. "Shows up one night in the rain, looking every inch an out-of-work mercenary. Some of them had been passing through, but he was looking for a place to live. So I gave him the upstairs." She paused a moment to take another drag and then faintly laughed the smoke out between her lips. "God, he scared the shit out of me. Late at night, had this *gun* on him, and those sharp-looking fingers..."  
  
"And you let him live upstairs?"  
  
Lily lifted her eyebrows in a wan facial shrug, staring out at the back wall of her house as if she couldn't quite believe it either. "My husband was gone; I was lonely. Here was someone who looked like he needed a break. A lot of people lost everything with Midgar, and everyone was worrying about violent, thieving refugees, even months after. Vince looked tired and cold and soaked to the skin, and I thought he'd probably been turned away from everywhere else. So..." This time she shrugged a shoulder. "Gave him the benefit of the doubt. And it wasn't like I didn't have my own gun."  
  
Tifa had a sudden uncomfortable picture of Cloud, somewhere in the rain, looking for someone to take him in. Knocking on doors, feeling suspicious eyes on him from the shadows behind dirty curtains. He'd never said where he was going, what he was trying to do. Find himself, maybe. Find someone else. She would've gone with him if he'd just asked, even if it had slipped them back into the roles of friends. Just to have something left, just to know that he was okay.  
  
Just to avoid that year of hell without him; the dumped obsessive girlfriend, the bitch without a backbone around him because she'd been so afraid of saying something wrong, of making him leave. She'd hated herself around him, hated herself without him. Loved him, hated him, been burned with the desire to break him into pieces like he'd broken her when he'd dropped her; been left wanting him to come back so that she could reject him, hold him so that he never left again.  
  
But he hadn't asked, and it wasn't like she didn't know why.  
  
"Y'okay?"  
  
Tifa swallowed and nodded her head. "It's just, sometimes... I guess I just have trouble...not thinking."  
  
"Yeah. The grieving, when something ends the hard way." She took another pull on her cigarette. "Helps to keep busy, though, and to talk about it if you can."  
  
"That's what you did?"  
  
She knocked some ash off into the grass. "Sort of. Didn't know anyone in Nibelheim, and Vincent and I didn't really talk to each other until..." She frowned a little and adjusted her hat. "Not until the fire, and that was about a year after he came to live upstairs."  
  
Another fire in Nibelheim? "What fire?"  
  
"That old mansion. Arsonists, everyone thought. Just trying to stir up trouble. Vincent was in Kalm at the time, and I guess he got word of it from somewhere. We weren't talking to each other, like I said, not really; but I did keep busy. Probably drove him batty, but he didn't say anything about it. I used to clean his place when he was gone, and I'd leave food in his fridge. Kind of felt like I needed someone to take care of, I guess. Then that fire." She took another draw and breathed out the smoke. "He was trying to call, but I was out watching the firemen scramble around, trying to put the flames out. When I finally answered the phone -- third time he'd tried, he told me later -- he seemed sort of angry, asked me where I'd been. He'd never called before, so I was surprised. I told him about the fire, but he said he already knew. And then I told him everything was fine, the house was far enough away. And then..." She raised her eyebrows and glanced at Tifa. "...he told me just to stay in the house, away from the fire."  
  
Tifa blinked in surprise. "He was worried about you?"  
  
Lily shrugged again. "Maybe. I remember wondering if he'd lost people in his life -- maybe he'd come from Midgar, too. So maybe he'd called expecting another all-encompassing disaster where everyone was dead. Something I didn't know about him then, but he feels kind of responsible for people. A guilty conscience, probably. I imagine it happens with mercenaries, or whatever he was, trying to turn over a new leaf. Still, it surprised me when he came in with you, both of you looking damp and half frozen." And then her mouth twitched into a smile. "Though I wasn't surprised he called last night, just to make sure you were okay."  
  
Tifa guessed that she looked puzzled because Lily went on to say, "Figured he didn't give a damn that far, huh?" She grinned toothily for a second. "He's never brought anybody home before. That's why I kind of wondered if you were ex-lovers. Some special connection or something, once upon a time. But, I suppose comrades in that group Avalanche explains it, too. Why he'd go to all the trouble."  
  
Atoning. Not jealousy, like she'd accused him of. He'd rescued her to atone. It made so much sense, she wondered why it hadn't been obvious.  
  
Maybe because she'd been too caught up in her own pain to think about it. She'd just wanted to cause pain.  
  
Why he'd pay special attention to her because she'd been in Avalanche, though, she had no idea. Three years ago he'd protected them, they'd all looked out for each other, because they'd all had a goal. Now he had no responsibility for her, as she had acidly reminded him only days ago. Why, then...  
  
And suddenly there was a dream following her into the sunlight -- the feel of insubstantial lips, the uneasy look of a man involuntarily attracted, out of place on a face etched in her memory as without emotion. Except for the attenuated moments before he'd transformed. But then, of course, she'd always turned away, too uncomfortable to watch the wrath and agony and horror of it.  
  
Had he always been attracted to her? If he had, he'd done a bang-up job of keeping it under wraps...  
  
"And after that, we talked. He knows about my husband. It helped. He's a good listener." Lily dropped her cigarette into the grass and stepped on it with the ball of her sandal as she stood up. "Well, you want to get back at it? Then I've got to head upstairs."  
  
"Into his apartment?"  
  
"Yeah, just to leave a couple of hints for him. Vacuum cleaner, a few scrubbers, just to give him the idea of what I want him to do. It usually works."  
  
Tifa felt a smile pull at the corners of her mouth. And she resolutely kept it there for a second, even as her mind insisted on remembering one of the few times in the beginning when she'd managed to convince Cloud that a vacuum could be operated just as well by a man.  
  
***  
  
Stepping into Vincent's apartment when she knew he wasn't home was like creeping into a restricted area behind the owner's back. And Tifa almost couldn't help walking cautiously, as if he might hear the footsteps and return suddenly. Banging the lid of a coffin upward at an unlooked-for liberation from solitude.  
  
At least where she was concerned. She felt fairly sure he wouldn't care if Lily went into his apartment ten times a day.  
  
Lily dropped off the cleaning supplies in obvious places -- some in the living room, some in the kitchen, some in the bathroom -- and then she went into the bedroom. After a second, Tifa heard the sound of the closet being opened. Hesitantly, she followed.  
  
She hadn't made the bed yesterday before Lily had ushered her downstairs. The curtains also hadn't been drawn back to let the light in. And somehow she felt as if that should be changed. So, while Lily was busy rummaging around under the hanging shapes of Vincent's clothes, she unfurled the crumpled blankets and opened the room to the sunlight. Much neater, much brighter. A definite improvement.  
  
Eventually, Lily sat up with a breathless sound of success. "Here's the damn thing. Don't know why he doesn't just ask me. Damn stubborn..." She trailed off, turning what looked like a wrinkled black shirt around in her hands. And then she put a hand to the closet door and pulled herself to her feet with a grunt. "Well, okay, that's it. We can go."  
  
They were half way to the door before Tifa asked, "What are you bringing his shirt for?"  
  
Lily pulled it open and showed her where a few of the buttons had been popped off. "He can do stitches, but he can't do buttons. Those metal fingers..." She made her hand claw-like. "...can't hold them properly. So he just throws his clothes that lose buttons into the back of his closet. Where I rescue them later, fix them up, and just slip them back onto hangers. He probably doesn't even notice."  
  
Tifa traced the line of missing buttons with her eyes. Four gone, starting from the collar. "I wonder what happened?" she murmured, her mind already filling in the answer with a picture of him transforming.   
  
She wasn't really expecting a response, but Lily replied, "Might've ripped it in the water, on a branch or something, when he jumped in after you. Who knows? He wouldn't tell me what happened before he carried you up the stairs."  
  
He'd torn the buttons off the night he'd brought her in, and Tifa had the sudden vivid mental image of him being tugged to a halt in the dark water, and then just tearing away from the obstacle in his haste to reach her. And this time, though she still felt some anger, not for being alive but for his presumption, she also felt a little grateful. And this time she didn't immediately quash the feeling down.  
  
Lily spent the afternoon doing her laundry, and then walking to the Nibel market, which Tifa was surprised to find still in operation, though obviously under new management. The first time she'd walked through Nibelheim in three years...and this time Cloud wasn't with her. The Shinra Mansion no longer dominated the skyline to the north -- once an ominous shadow, but like a storm that had already boomed out the last of its thunder and crackled out the last of its lightning, just a memory of a nightmare that had already passed -- and Tifa was glad it had been razed to the ground. If only Cloud were here to see it with her. What would he think to know that the place that had started it all was finally dead?  
  
What had Vincent thought, she suddenly wondered, when word had reached him that it was burning? So much love and hate and bitterness and torture in that place. It was fitting, somehow, that it had been consumed by fire; a place full of demons and memories licked clean by the purifying flames.  
  
That evening, they ate some of the stew she'd helped Lily make the night before, and then Lily went to take a bath. While she was in the bathroom, Tifa explored.  
  
All of the knives were missing, hidden, and Tifa wasn't sure how she felt about it. Grateful that the temptation wasn't out in the open, angry that she was still being controlled, angry that she couldn't just be happy. Lily was wonderful -- keeping her busy, talking to her, feeding her, giving her a warm bed to sleep in. Why couldn't she just forget everything else and be good and appreciative and glad to be alive?  
  
She'd been in the cramped living room already a couple of times, but this time she picked through things and admired the little porcelain dancers on the wall unit and squinted at the scrawl in the corner of a painting. She was opening up a flower-patterned sewing box Lily had on a shelf when the phone in the kitchen rang. At first she was inclined to ignore it, but then she heard Lily swearing and trying to get out of the tub in the bathroom.  
  
"Don't worry, I'll get it," she said as she passed the door before heading into the kitchen.  
  
It was just finishing its third ring when she picked it up. "Hello?"  
  
There was silence on the other end.  
  
She frowned. "Hello?"  
  
"Tifa."  
  
The receiver slipped down toward her chin and she grabbed it before it could fall out of her hand. "Vincent?"  
  
He didn't reply for a number of awkward seconds. "Where's Lily?"  
  
"In...in the bath."  
  
More silence.  
  
Tifa repressed the urge to fidget. "Do you need to talk to her?"  
  
She heard him draw a breath. "No." A pause. "Good night."  
  
"Oh. Good night." And she hung up.  
  
Uncomfortable. Painfully abrupt. 'And why shouldn't he be?' something in her scolded suddenly, even as she was becoming offended. 'You weren't interested in having a conversation with him before, the man who rescued you. The last time you talked to him in the evening, it was to scream and swear because he wouldn't let you kill yourself and wouldn't let you use him for meaningless sexual comfort.'  
  
And then there was no anger. It was slipping away. Nothing there to cushion the shame.  
  
And when Lily got out of the bath a few minutes later, it was to find Tifa in the living room with Vincent's shirt on her lap, looking through the sewing box for some black thread.  
  
***  
  
There, that chapter was a little longer. Hello to any of my family members who might be reading this! *cough* Theresa *cough* Dad *cough*  
  
And a big hug to reviewers! Thank you again and again and again. 123, I'm happy to see you! (Or read you, whatever :P) Thank you for coming back! 


	10. Change of Plans

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Nine: Change of Plans  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Nothing this bad in a long, long time. A tree, not far ahead. Vincent clenched his teeth and left the carcass behind him as he got to one knee and forced himself forward. Not since he'd been an amateur gun for Shinra had he allowed anything to get so close, to catch him unawares. Where the hell had all of his concentration gone?  
  
*They* were still broiling beneath the surface, hungry to be loosed again, excited by his pain and the smell of blood, even if some of it was his own. But if he could just buy himself a couple of minutes, force them down until he could get the bleeding under control. Get back to his feet and somehow get mounted again. Get back to Nibelheim before other creatures caught the scent of injured prey...  
  
He hoped he still had some of that surgical thread left.  
  
He hitched himself around until he was leaning his back against the tree. The bone was still intact, but it was a deep tear through the skin and muscle and tendons of his right thigh, angled upward, maybe three inches above the knee. Damn, damn, damn! Even knowing the way his body healed, like a river recovering from a ripple, demon tissue ignoring the constraints of time and of normal human physiology, it might still be at least two weeks before he could use it properly without damaging it further.  
  
Dammit!  
  
Everything felt slick and warm in the dark, and the nighttime world was starting to feel a little unreal. But he managed to find two of the bandages, strips of material from a black shirt that had lost too many buttons. Carefully, he stretched his leg out, loosely wrapped the wound, and then hesitated a moment, the two ends of the bandage in flesh and metal fingers. Clenched his teeth and steadied his breathing.  
  
And tightened.  
  
The first time he'd ever had to do this (years and years ago, dressed in blue and hunched against the wall of a house in Midgar where everyone was dead but him), he'd blacked out. Only for a few seconds, but it had left him feeling disoriented hours afterward. Now, however, he could force himself to remain conscious, though he couldn't help a muffled grunt of pain. And then he repeated the process with the second make-shift bandage.  
  
The chocobo was skittish, nervous at the smell of blood. But, well-trained, it had not run. And though it rolled its eyes and made quick, trilling sounds of agitation, it stood still as he pulled himself up onto its back.  
  
The wound burned as he rode, as severed muscles tried to hold him to his mount. But he would be back home in a matter of hours. An unfortunate turn of events, to have to cut the hunt so short.  
  
But they would pay him in Nibelheim just the same as in Kalm for the evidence of a dead monster, though he rarely hunted around Nibelheim anymore. Not enough monsters to make it worth his while, and he was not Sephiroth to go up against a Zolom. Though he'd certainly considered it more than once. But the threat of debilitating mutilation always made him change his mind, as did the idea of what could possibly be months of recuperation. He hated the very thought of that kind of infirmity, the vulnerability of it.  
  
Hated any vulnerability, really. To anything...  
  
Tifa had sounded more herself over the phone, more the Tifa he vaguely remembered from Avalanche. And though he wanted to deny it, had been trying to deny it, some part of him was uneasy about returning to Nibelheim. About seeing her again, now that she no longer seemed possessed with the desire to end her own life.  
  
Tifa, Lucrecia. But this time she'd lived instead, saved him from his self-inflicted guilt. And he was a fool.  
  
Tifa wasn't Lucrecia. This wasn't atoning. His mind was just substituting, but he didn't have to accept it. She wasn't going to make him vulnerable again.  
  
Tifa...she'd been stronger than Lucrecia, in the end.  
  
***  
  
Tifa frowned and held the shirt up to the early morning light coming in through the window, trying to see it with an objective eye.  
  
Lily was smirking a little from the kitchen table, a cigarette held loosely between her fingers. "Black, dark blue; it doesn't matter. He's not going to notice. I don't think he pays that much attention to his clothing."  
  
Tifa shrugged a little. "Maybe you're right. It doesn't look *that* much different." She twisted one of the buttons gently to see the navy thread underneath. "Where did you get all of these black buttons?"  
  
"Two other shirts he's wrecked over the years. Ones that neither of us could patch up. I just kept the buttons in case he ever lost some. Pays to be prepared, I guess."  
  
"Pays *him* that *you're* prepared, you mean."  
  
Lily chuckled a little. "Yeah, maybe." She took a drag and blew the smoke away from the table. "You going to take it up?"  
  
"I think so, before he comes back."  
  
Lily smirked. "You know," she began in what was almost a drawl, "I've been getting the impression that you and Vincent didn't really know each other in Avalanche."  
  
"Well, there wasn't exactly a lot of time." But she knew it was an excuse, and it looked like Lily knew it, too. With a sigh, she turned back to the window and amended, "He didn't talk very much, and I think we were all a little afraid of him."  
  
"He's not all that scary, is he?"  
  
He was, Tifa thought, if you'd seen him, heard him turn into a monster, not so different sometimes than the blood-thirsty monsters around you. Watched him dispassionately shoot soldiers, some of them no older than you, right between the eyes. Not that the soldiers hadn't been trying to execute them; not that the rest of Avalanche hadn't killed; but Tifa had never seen someone take human life so calmly, as mechanical as breathing.  
  
Still hard to believe that he'd changed enough to feel *responsible* for human lives. Though he had rescued her, had made a friend of Lily...  
  
Had so far behaved in a quiet, but recognizably *human* way...  
  
"When will he get back, do you think?"  
  
"Oh, not for a couple of days. He'll let us know. Do you want me to come with you?"  
  
Tifa smiled a little. It was nice to have the concern, but she could see how it might become suffocating, even from Lily. "No, I'm fine. I'll be back in a few minutes." She turned to the door and then remembered. "Keys?"  
  
Lily found them on the table and tossed them to her. Tifa caught them out of the air, inwardly pleased for a moment that her reflexes had not completely deserted her.  
  
She opened the door at the bottom and thought about jogging up the stairs (the most energy she'd had in a long time), but then changed her mind. Not a good idea to push her ankle *too* fast. The lock and door at the top made little noise as she worked to enter the apartment.  
  
She was just going to duck in and duck out, she told herself. Put his shirt on a hanger in the closet and then leave. He would never know she'd been there.  
  
The bathroom door was open and the light was on. And she could hear...she didn't know. Was someone here? Had Lily left the light on yesterday by accident?  
  
There had been a time she wouldn't have felt nervous about a situation like this, not nervous for her own physical well-being. She'd been stronger than some men. But not now. Her first impulse was to leave as quietly as she had arrived. If it was Vincent, back already, he would want his privacy. If it was a stranger...  
  
Could she really just leave if it was a stranger, someone intent on robbing the place? Could she just pretend she hadn't seen anything? Or should she get Lily? Lily had said she owned a gun...  
  
Though how would Vincent react if it was him and they came busting in, wielding a weapon?  
  
God, this was crazy. Indecisive Tifa, all over again. She was just going to go over there and check. Maybe she'd imagined the noise.  
  
Quietly, she crept to her right until she could see into the bathroom.  
  
It was Vincent. But... She had to fight the urge to gasp. Bleeding. Sitting on the edge of the toilet lid, one foot propped up on the low rim of the tub. Bootless, pantless. Bleeding from a serious looking wound on his thigh. A wound he was stitching up.  
  
He slipped the needle and the glossy thread in and out of his skin with quick, darting movements, holding a red-smudged towel in his claw to catch the blood. His hair had been loosely tied back, and it looked like he'd smeared some blood there, too. His face was set in a permanent grimace as he worked, and sometimes he gave a small noise of discomfort as he breathed.  
  
After a few moments, he lifted the needle to his mouth and held it between his teeth for a moment as he tugged on the thread, clenching his eyes shut as he tightened the stitches. And then he stuck the needle into the towel and reached for a bottle on the sink counter. A bottle of whiskey, Tifa recognized. Strong whiskey. His hand only shook a little as he brought the bottle to his lips and took a couple of good swallows. And then he moved to put it back on the counter.  
  
And then he noticed her.  
  
She wondered idly as they stared at each other, both shocked into a wary stillness that seemed to last for ages, how it was that he hadn't left a trail of blood with a wound that grievous, hadn't left a mark on the doorknob. Perhaps he'd gotten very good at keeping his injuries to himself.  
  
As before, he was the first to recover from the surprise. With a quiet sigh, he looked away from her. "Do you need something?"  
  
Tifa ventured a few steps closer, around the couch. "Are you all right?"  
  
"I'm fine. Please leave if you don't need anything."  
  
She was fidgeting with something in her fingers. She forced herself to stop. "Okay." And then she realized it was the shirt she'd been fiddling with. "Oh, and..." This wasn't the right time. He looked up again, and though he didn't look impatient she was almost sure he was. It wasn't hard to imagine that he wouldn't want an audience. "Your shirt," she finished lamely. "I'll put it on the couch." She turned and draped it over the cushions. And then she went to leave.  
  
"Tifa."  
  
She stopped and glanced back at him, trying not to think about how awkward it was to look at a man, injured and bloody and half-naked in his bathroom.  
  
He hesitated for a couple of seconds, looking, if it was possible, a little sheepish. "Please, don't tell Lily."  
  
For a moment, she couldn't help but smile. Maybe he didn't want to worry Lily. Maybe he was afraid she would coddle him, though Tifa couldn't picture Lily coddling anyone. And then she nodded and crossed her heart, like she'd sometimes done with Marlene when the little girl hadn't wanted her father to know she'd broken a glass. "Our secret."  
  
Vincent looked at her, one eyebrow twitching upward as if she'd surprised him. And then he gave a quick nod.  
  
And suddenly they were partners in this. And a partnership, especially over a secret, required trust. His trust in her.  
  
Not since Avalanche...  
  
A moment later, she was out the door. And then she was half skipping down the stairs, her ankle completely forgotten.  
  
***  
  
Sorry, another somewhat short chapter. But what can I say? It's done. I hope this doesn't get too repetitive, but thanks so much for reviews! You don't know what it means, to open up my email in the morning and find a bunch of encouraging messages! Makes me wanna write more *grin* 


	11. A Different Game

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Ten: A Different Game  
  
by thelittletree  
  
It was very easy, Tifa thought, to slip back into the roles they'd all played before Vincent had gone to Kalm.  
  
Once she knew that Vincent had returned, Lily grabbed up some containers of the stew they'd made, her pack of cards, some gil, and her cigarettes. And she bustled both herself and Tifa upstairs. Vincent, when they arrived, was already dressed in a clean pair of pants and seated at his kitchen table, his right leg stretched out in a way Tifa recognized so that it didn't seem obvious if he was resting it because it was sore. The blood on his hands and in his hair was also gone without a trace, washed away as simply as if it might've been dirt.  
  
And it wasn't hard at all to keep Vincent's 'secret' from Lily. Because, as always, Lily seemed determined to get everything ready herself. And when Lily asked him about his early return, the brief, blunt way he answered her gave nothing away. And then they were sitting down to stew and tea for breakfast while Lily and Vincent shared a cigarette and they all played poker.  
  
It was obvious fairly soon that, playing with both Tifa and Vincent, Lily hardly stood a chance of winning a hand. And eventually, inevitably, after having split her gil with Tifa, she ran out of things to bet with. Tifa was more than willing to split her winnings, but Lily only winked and said she was going downstairs to have a bath in privacy before going out to her garden. She would return later, she told them, around lunch time.  
  
And once she was gone, the silence in the apartment was nearly palpable. But, since Vincent seemed ready to finish the hand they'd started as if nothing had changed, Tifa resolved just to keep her seat and pay attention to her cards.  
  
Vincent had won five hands so far, out of the eight they'd played. And right now, Tifa was almost sure he was bluffing. He had no pattern. His poker face was flawless, completely without expression. He didn't shift in his seat or fidget. But Tifa still thought he was bluffing. Something about his eyes, the way he watched her, the intervals following eye contact when he darted his gaze away. Maybe a pattern there, she mused, that she was subconsciously picking up. She raised him four gil. "I call your bluff."  
  
He glanced up at her suddenly and, after a moment, lowered his cards. Nothing. Two sixes, a low one-pair. Tifa smiled a little and dropped her own hand: a flush of hearts. Not just a winning hand in this case, but a demolishing hand. And this gil she would give back to Lily. She scooped it up in her hands and put it in the pile at her elbow.  
  
Vincent was still slouched in his chair, staring to his left at what Tifa expected was nothing in particular. She set about tidying up the cards, ignoring the impulse to clear her throat. "Another game?"  
  
He didn't answer for a moment. "No." And then he levered himself out of the chair with an ease that said he'd had leg wounds before; though, as he made his way out of the kitchen and into the living room, he walked with a noticeable limp. Tifa swallowed down the urge to fill the silence with inane questions about his injury. She didn't think he'd appreciate her curiousity, considering that she'd only found out about his leg by accident.  
  
But for that, she wouldn't have known about it at all. She expected he would've kept it hidden from both Lily and herself.  
  
That pride she recognized, to keep the pain one feels away from others. To deal with it oneself. Refusing to be a burden, to be indebted, to show weakness. She knew all about that feeling.  
  
She got up to pour herself another mug of tea from the pot Lily had made and then returned to the table to play a round of solitaire, the way her father had taught her when she was a girl. There had actually been a number of quiet games she'd learned to play by herself, without siblings and with friends who were mostly boys and mostly interested in playing roughly.  
  
Vincent returned half way through her second game and pulled a glass down from a shelf. He then poured himself some water from the tap and popped what Tifa assumed were painkillers into his mouth.  
  
"You don't have to hide your things anymore," she told him as he took a quick swallow of water. "Your pills and knives. I'm not trying to...to hurt myself anymore."  
  
Vincent didn't say anything. Tifa stared at his back for a few seconds longer than necessary before glancing down at the card she was twitching between her fingers. Maybe he didn't believe her, but she found she couldn't get angry at him if that was the case. It hadn't been that long ago that she'd stood in this very kitchen, only a foot or so from where he was standing now, and cursed at him, pulled open drawers in search of an answer that wasn't there.  
  
"I haven't been myself for a long time," she confessed quietly toward the table, determined to somehow make this right. "I just...things went really wrong." There was a lump growing in her throat and the telltale tingle of tears around her cheekbones. She blinked them back resolutely, before they could form. She wasn't about to start crying about this again, especially in front of him. "I guess I just started thinking that there was no other way out. Everything seemed so hopeless. I just...I don't know." She scooped the cards together and began to straighten the edges so they all matched up, if only to have something to do with her hands. "The Tifa I was in Midgar would never had tried to kill herself," she admitted; though, of course, Vincent hadn't known her Midgar.  
  
She chanced a glance at his back. He hadn't moved from where he stood, half supporting himself against the counter. She had no idea if he was even listening. Though Lily had said he was a good listener...  
  
"Thank you, Vincent. The Tifa I was in Midgar thanks you, for saving her. Saving me." She took a shallow breath and swept a few strands of wayward hair behind one ear. "And I'm sorry I was so...ungrateful before. I thought I wanted to die. But I guess I would've died as...the wrong Tifa." She smiled wanly to herself at the thought. "The Tifa I was when..." But she trailed off. She couldn't say it. After a moment, she gave in to her own hesitation and sighed. "I'm sorry for all of the trouble."  
  
It felt better to have said it. Her father had once told her that it was important to apologize the first chance you had, as soon as you knew you were in the wrong. It kept things from becoming uncomfortable.  
  
If only she'd thought to obey him before things had become uncomfortable with Cloud. Though she would never have known what to say. 'I'm sorry I'm not Aeris. I'm sorry I'm independent and willful, and that I don't like being carried around in your arms like a child.'  
  
'I'm sorry I loved you too much to let you go, even when we both knew it wasn't working.'  
  
"Forget it."  
  
Tifa glanced up again, but Vincent was still facing the sink.  
  
"No one would have left you in the water."  
  
So he'd said earlier. "But how many would've put up with me?" she wondered softly, not sure if she was directing the question at him. "How many would've spent the energy trying to keep me safe from myself? Especially when I was so..." She frowned down at the cards. How many would have? Not many. Lily, maybe. What about Cid? Barret?  
  
And she realized it wasn't a fair comparison. Cid and Barret had their own families now. And if she'd tried, she knew she would've been able to convince them she was all right. She was the strong one. She'd always been the strong one.  
  
They wouldn't have recognized the mistake of leaving her alone until it was too late. And then the guilt would've broken them.  
  
But Vincent had known. And he hadn't left her alone, hadn't given her the chance.  
  
Maybe she'd needed to come through it the hard way.  
  
She heard Vincent take a breath, and then he turned from the sink and limped back to the chair he always sat in. And then he carefully lowered himself into it. His eyes, Tifa noticed, he kept averted from her.  
  
His expression didn't show it, but Tifa wondered suddenly at the pain he was undoubtedly feeling. And then she remembered something. Something that might give him away to Lily eventually.  
  
"Lily wants you to clean the apartment."  
  
He met her gaze for a moment, as if the sudden shift in conversation had surprised him. And then she saw the skin around his mouth tighten. "I know."  
  
Tifa idly began to shuffle the deck. "Will you be able to do it? With your leg, I mean?"  
  
His only answer was to shrug.  
  
And Tifa had an idea about how she might be able to do Vincent a favour, in return for what he'd done for her. Though how to get him to accept it...  
  
How had Lily gotten her to answer questions when she'd thought herself unwilling?  
  
Tifa put the deck in the middle of the table and gestured at it so that Vincent was paying attention. "High card," she told him. "If I win, I'll help you clean. If you win, I'll go downstairs and...and help Lily in the garden. I'll try to stall her."  
  
Vincent's eyebrow twitched. But he was watching her. And then he sighed.  
  
And picked up a card. Dropped it in front of himself. The jack of spades.  
  
Tifa pulled her lower lip between her teeth and took the next card from the top. And then she smiled.  
  
The queen of hearts.  
  
***  
  
Tifa took the job of vacuuming the carpets. Vincent managed the bathroom. Tifa wiped down the inside of his stove and fridge. Vincent cleaned the kitchen counters. And Tifa put the kettle on.  
  
It was coming around to half past eleven when they finally sat back at the table, Vincent looking maybe a little paler than usual. But he wasn't complaining. He dealt the cards.  
  
And when Lily arrived fifteen minutes later, it was to find them engrossed in a game of poker, as if they might not have stopped playing since she'd left.  
  
***  
  
Hello! I wrote most of this chapter at work. It's boring where I work. Thanks for reviews everyone! You're all amazing, lovely people! 


	12. Alcohol, Comfrey, and a Little Bit of Co...

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Eleven: Alcohol, Comfrey, and a Little Bit of Company  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Tifa and Lily didn't leave until the middle of the evening, despite a few subtle urges on Tifa's part (a yawn, a comment about how she was tired, a question about whether Lily wanted to go back downstairs), and by then Vincent's leg was so stiff and sore he could hardly sit still. The workout he'd given his damaged muscles in cleaning the apartment had taken its toll so that, by the time the door finally closed behind them (half a glimpse of Tifa, peering in until the last second as if she expected him to suddenly beckon her back), it was all he could do to get to his feet without groaning aloud.  
  
And then he made the slow, arduous trip to the bathroom where he kept his supply of painkillers and bandages.  
  
The wound was still bleeding, had bled through the gauzy strips he'd wound tightly around his thigh. But the stitches were holding. And in a few days he knew it was going to itch like nothing else as it healed. Though it wasn't as if he hadn't been able to hide that before, from Lily. The only wound, in fact, she'd ever known about had been the one on the back of his left shoulder a year and a half ago, and only because it had required stitches he hadn't been able to do himself. And he hadn't been about to take himself to the hospital. Not surprising, maybe, that professionals in long white coats made him nervous.  
  
Though Lily had been almost as bad: she wasn't the type of person to worry fretfully; she worried demonstratively. He couldn't even recall all of the times she'd demanded to have a look at the ragged cut. Though by the third day he'd steadfastly refused to keep pulling off his shirt for her scrutiny. Because she wouldn't have understood about his body's recovery rate. And he hadn't wanted to frighten her.  
  
Lily had never walked in on him, though, any of the other times. Maybe that had just been providence. But the same luck didn't seem to hold true with Tifa. Not at poker, not at anything. He'd glanced up from where he was leaning toward the sink, already feeling a buzz from the whiskey, to see her standing there with her mouth open. Of all the times to neglect to close the bathroom door...  
  
Though she hadn't told Lily, and she'd actually gone so far as to make herself available to help him clean his apartment so that Lily wouldn't recognize that anything was amiss. That had surprised him, though it was definitely more like the Tifa he remembered from Avalanche, who had often taken it upon herself to look at the injuries of others, with her materia and a rudimentary knowledge of how to deal with wounds.  
  
Though she'd never tended him. His own choice, of course, and after the first time she'd offered (maybe a little nervously) and he'd refused, she'd never offered again. What was a gash, a broken rib, the burning skim of a bullet compared to the need for vengeance? What was death, even?  
  
Now, however, he might not have been so averse to having someone tend him. Someone he could trust. Though... He grimaced a little. Though he wasn't about to let Tifa look at, or touch, anything that high on his thigh. Lily, maybe, if it had been necessary, if he hadn't been so sure about how she would react to the wound itself -- nothing could embarrass that woman, and that fact, in turn, made him comfortable. But he couldn't imagine Tifa...  
  
Not when he remembered the feel of Lucrecia's proximity in those first few months, when they were not much past the talking stage, like standing too close to a fire. If only he could somehow teach himself to stop feeling this way. Because he was sure it had more to do with a misplaced residue of desire, still tied up with the terrible guilt and bitterness, for his former lover than with Tifa herself. Not that, in her own way, Tifa wasn't...  
  
He shook his head as he replaced the bloody bandage with a clean one and then took a quick peek at the slash on his arm, hardly a scratch anymore. This wasn't the way to deal with it. He would just have to make sure he was looking at Tifa as Tifa, the woman from Avalanche who, although worthy of some regard, he had not been attracted to. And maybe the attraction would simply go away, like a fading memory.  
  
He slipped back into his pants and then shook a couple of painkillers into his hand before heading for the kitchen. At the sink, he poured himself some water and swallowed the pills down. Then he took the cup with him into the bathroom. Might as well make things easier on himself -- cup and pills in the same place.  
  
And then, feeling exhausted by so many recent sleepless nights, by the pain, the alcohol, the painkillers, he went to bed. There were other things to worry about -- how he was going to keep this from Lily until he could walk on it; how *they* might react to the possible length needed for recuperation (seven days had been the longest he'd gone without a kill since he'd arrived here, in Nibelheim, and even then he'd been pushing the limit. They had threatened him with their hungry anger, threatened to *make* him transform, and he'd known they wouldn't be choosy about their prey). But right now he was too tired and sore to feel much concern. Tomorrow. He would worry about these things tomorrow.  
  
Nightmares be damned, he needed the sleep.  
  
***  
  
Tifa was on the couch in Lily's living room, staring wakefully at the wall unit that stood across from her in the darkness, idly studying the sleeping shadows of the porcelain dancers. Lily was sleeping by now, too, she was fairly sure. But Tifa couldn't sleep. The couch wasn't uncomfortable; she had a pillow and a blanket and a long nightie to keep her warm. There wasn't any noise or too much light in the room. Nothing to distract her.  
  
But maybe that was the problem. Because now she was thinking again. Thinking about the first argument they'd ever had that had ended with Cloud sleeping on the couch, because he'd been too angry to want to share the bed with her. She'd cried for hours that night, maybe mourning the dying relationship even before she'd known -- really known -- that it was in trouble. And, of all the silly things to fight over, they'd been arguing about beer. Beer. A beer she hadn't wanted to order for her bar because no one had ever asked for it -- no one but a friend of Cloud's who only came into her bar once or twice a month. Not worth it to buy the minimum amount. And Cloud just hadn't understood; he'd never had to run a business before. And he'd thought he'd known better than her, because his friend knew this supplier, blah, blah, blah.  
  
Maybe she should've just bought the stupid beer, she thought with a doleful scoff.  
  
Twenty minutes passed, and she was still awake and staring at the wall unit. So she began to think that maybe she just needed a drink, a reason to walk around. Quietly, she got to her feet and went into the darkened kitchen.  
  
She got a glass out of a cupboard and poured herself a drink from the tap. And then she sat at the table and explored with her fingers the dark shapes of things Lily had left out. Package of cigarettes. Her lighter. A crumpled paper towel. Keys.  
  
The keys were cold against her fingers. She twisted them around until she was holding one by its uneven teeth and then took a long sip of water. This one unlocked Vincent's apartment, she knew, because it was the largest of the group. Others Lily had pointed out as the key to her mail box at the post office, the key her safety deposit box, and the key for her own door.  
  
Maybe Vincent would be up. He'd been up before when she'd come out of the room looking for ice for her ankle. She didn't exactly want to talk, so maybe he wouldn't mind it if she occupied his couch. Because she just needed some company, she felt, and wakeful, silent company seemed more appealing than sleeping, silent company. And, since earlier that day especially, she'd found she was no longer quite so uncomfortable around her former-companion. Human, just like the rest of them, and maybe he would even welcome a distraction from his own pain.  
  
That thought reminded her suddenly of something she'd seen in Lily's bathroom; and it gave her an idea.  
  
At his door, her feet barely tucked into her shoes, she stopped to debate whether or not to knock. Should she, if it meant he would have to limp over to answer it? No, she decided immediately. But was it proper just to unlock the door and walk in? And what if he *was* sleeping? He probably wouldn't appreciate being disturbed in the middle of the night. She pursed her lips. Maybe she hadn't thought this out properly. Just because she was wakeful didn't mean he would be. And he was injured; he needed the sleep.  
  
A bad idea. Very selfish of her to assume. She turned on the landing.  
  
"Did you need something?"  
  
His voice carried through the door. Tifa froze. And then she winced as a blush of embarrassment start to crawl up her neck. "Sorry," she apologized, raising her voice to be heard clearly -- though he'd seemed to hear her well enough, shuffling her feet on his doorstep. "I just...I couldn't sleep." She paused uncomfortably for a moment, caught in indecision. And then she took a breath. "Can I come in?"  
  
He didn't answer for what felt like an inordinately long few seconds. "All right."  
  
"Thanks. Don't get up, I have the key."  
  
His living room was dark, but she could see him, half a blur of black pants and pale skin, as he made his way back toward his bedroom. She thought at first that he was just going to go in and close the door. But he returned before long, limping out of the darker shadows as he finished pulling on a gray sweater she recognized. And she couldn't help a twinge of guilt for having made him get up to make himself decent for company. It *was* the middle of the night; of course he hadn't expected to entertain a guest.  
  
And she'd always thought of herself as a considerate person...  
  
He lowered himself back onto the couch and, after a moment, lifted his right foot to rest it on the coffee table in front of him. Then he sat back and she saw his red eyes focus on her. She half expected him to ask her a question, or invite her to sit down, but he did neither. He simply glanced away again. So she took it upon herself to sit on the couch, though not too close beside him, and curled her legs up underneath her. A few seconds passed in silence.  
  
And she amended her earlier thoughts. Silent, wakeful company was better than sleeping, wakeful company, but not by much. She quietly cleared her throat. "I didn't wake you, did I?"  
  
"No."  
  
"That's good." She rubbed a gritty eye with her fingers, if only to give herself a moment to think of something else to say. "How's your leg?"  
  
He didn't answer her right away. And then he gave a twitch of his shoulders that she almost missed in the dark. "It will heal."  
  
She was still carrying the keys, and the thing she'd grabbed from Lily's medicine cabinet. She absently rubbed the small, plastic jar with her thumb. "I...I found something that might help with the pain." She reached out and placed the container between them on the couch, a modest offering since she felt there was very little else she could do. "It's a creme made from comfrey. I found it in Lily's bathroom. Someone in the hospital brought me some when I had stitches." So many stitches, she remembered, absently touching the scar on her abdomen through the nightie. "It kept my skin from getting irritated and itchy."  
  
He glanced at the container before reaching out to pick it up. Then he spent a few moments inspecting the label and, though Tifa couldn't see much of his expression in the dim light from the windows, he seemed interested. He twisted the top off and smelled the creme. And then he replaced the cap.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome. Anything to help, I guess."  
  
He didn't reply as he moved to put the jar on the coffee table. Tifa slipped some hair behind one ear and took a breath. "Well, I..." She cleared her throat again. "I'm sorry for just showing up in the middle of the night. I just...I couldn't sleep, and..." She was repeating herself. She trailed off with a grimace. "Sorry if I disturbed you. I can go back downstairs if you want your privacy."  
  
He seemed to consider her words for a few moments before shrugging again. "Do what you like."  
  
"But do you want to go to sleep? You don't have to stay out here with me, or I can leave..."  
  
He glanced over at her. "You can stay if you like," he said clearly, as if to clarify. Then he swept his eyes away again. "I've already slept."  
  
He couldn't have slept long, Tifa realized. But that was his choice.  
  
Nearly a minute of silence followed. Tifa lay her head against the back of the couch and stared at the coffee table, though her eyes wandered over to Vincent once in a while, almost of their own accord. He remained all but motionless beside her, alone in spite of her presence, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.  
  
And, despite herself, Tifa wondered what he was thinking about. Once upon a time, it hadn't been anything unusual to see Vincent sitting just outside of the circle of firelight, sometimes doing maintenance on his guns, sometimes just on watch. Maybe none of them had ever felt inclined to ask him what he was mulling over in his solitude; maybe they'd thought he wouldn't answer; maybe they'd all been too busy with their own dramas to care.  
  
But she'd seen him, heard him almost participating in conversations with Lily. Watched him smirk when Lily got sick of losing, heard him bait her occasionally -- a dry, quiet wit that had become less atypical over the days she'd been here -- evidences of a personality no one had thought to look for. She'd seen him surprised; see him offended; seen him slouch in a chair and smoke. Seen him watch her like a man watches a woman...  
  
And now she found herself curious to know more about this human being she almost couldn't believe he might always have been behind the cape and the stoicism. Almost jealous, she realized suddenly, at the ease that existed between he and Lily, comfortable enough to share the same cigarette over the table. Because, even though she knew about the wound Lily didn't know he had, even though she'd fought beside him, even though she'd seen him transform -- she still didn't really know him.  
  
She'd sometimes watched Cloud in his moments of silent reverie, she recalled, wondering at the memories, monologues, dialogues going on in his head. It had bothered her more than once that she didn't know, couldn't even really guess with any kind of certainty, what he was thinking about -- jealous, then, to think that he would've talked to Aeris, would've bared his very soul to her. Jealous despite the number of times she'd seen him bare his body...  
  
She picked distractedly at a crease in the material around her knees and took a breath. She'd come up here expressly so that she *wouldn't* think, and what was she doing? Like a bad habit she fell back into when she had nothing else to do. Maybe Vincent and Lily had the right idea with those cigarettes...  
  
Nothing else was going on in the room, so it wasn't hard to notice when Vincent surreptitiously slipped his hand onto his thigh, where the gash lay under his pants. She nibbled her bottom lip and picked up the nearly inconspicuous thread of conversation. "Does it hurt much?"  
  
He paused a moment before giving another partial shrug. "I've had wounds like it before."  
  
That didn't really answer her question; a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "So, that's a no?"  
  
He glanced at her again, as if her attempt at humour had surprised him, and she thought she saw an eyebrow twitch.  
  
A grin threatened. "Sorry. Maybe I've gotten too used to Lily and her straightforward replies."  
  
Something seemed to flit over his expression, his face partially illumined in the moonlight. And then he turned away. Fully expecting another interlude of silence, Tifa was caught off guard when he spoke. "Lily does have that tendency."  
  
That made her smile; her ready affection for the older woman would have allowed no less. "I think I can understand why you don't want her to know about your leg," she commented, hoping to keep the exchange alive. "She blunt, and she's stubborn, and she's always inclined to help, whether you want the help or not." In her case, it might've been invaluable; Vincent obviously did not look at it in the same way, though he seemed willing enough to let Lily help him in other ways. "Though I suppose that's what makes her so endearing."  
  
Vincent raised his eyebrows in a brief, wordless gesture of what she thought might've been agreement.  
  
"So, is this where you came after you left us? Nibelheim?"  
  
He took a breath and Tifa shifted a little where she was sitting, feeling sort of eager for some kind of participation on his part. "No. I came here when I was hired to get rid of monsters in this area."  
  
"What did you do until then?"  
  
He looked back over at her, and though his expression remained the same she had the distinct impression that her curious interest wasn't something he'd expected. But still, he answered. "I traveled."  
  
"To where?"  
  
"Nowhere particular."  
  
"Oh." She had to fight the urge to fidget in the silence that followed. "So, you've just been living here and killing monsters for three years?"  
  
He turned his eyes back to his leg and nodded.  
  
It sounded like a simple kind of life. Do what you're good at; get paid for it; share a duplex with a woman who knows how to cook and who could probably befriend a porcupine.  
  
As simple as she'd thought it would be in the beginning when they'd signed that lease, birthed the bar together, lived upstairs the way two people in love lived. It had seemed so perfect and uncomplicated in the beginning.  
  
She frowned despite herself at her thoughts. Why was this so hard tonight? Why couldn't she just forget for a few hours? She licked her lips and remembered the first couple of weeks after Cloud had left. She'd lived above a bar, after all.  
  
She scratched restlessly at the hair above her temple, knowing it probably wasn't a good idea to ask. Knowing the thirst wouldn't leave her until she'd asked. "Um, Vincent, do you have any of that whiskey left?"  
  
***  
  
She fell asleep somewhere between the third and fourth shot from the bottle he kept under the sink.  
  
Lily knew he kept alcohol in the house, of course. They'd had drinks together sometimes. But she didn't know about the whiskey. His own small supply of hard liquor he rarely dipped into; only when he needed a quick way to numb the pain, physical or otherwise.  
  
And tonight, Tifa had needed it. Getting stronger, getting better, but it never happened all at once. Not for anyone. He knew that too well to have been able to deny her the temporary respite.  
  
It was easier to think of her as Tifa as they'd talked, he'd realized. She was not Lucrecia. The attraction would wear off eventually, it stood to reason. He picked the bottle up from the coffee table and took a quick shot himself. And then another. And wondered if he would sleep again tonight.  
  
The nightmares were always worse, it seemed, the longer he waited to succumb to the pull of a bed and heavy eyelids. And this time had been no different. But maybe they'd leave him be now. Alcohol, comfrey, and a little bit of unexpected company. Different things to numb different types of pain.  
  
Tifa only mumbled as he moved her, shifted her until she was lying on her back. Only sighed as he draped her in a blanket. And then he maneuvered himself back into his room.  
  
It had to do with Cloud; he wasn't surprised. Drunk, but tired, she hadn't talked much after that. She'd fumbled, reaching for the table so she could put the whiskey down. He'd taken it from her so she wouldn't spill. And she'd smiled in a kind of relief. Somewhere between the third and fourth shot.  
  
And mumbled, "Thanks, Cloud," before passing out.  
  
***  
  
There. It's done. This chapter gave me fits. Trying to fit it into a schedule of work and looking for work and studying and looking for an apartment and trying to track down a landlady who seems to have skipped the country...  
  
But you don't want to hear my excuses :P  
  
Many appreciative thanks for reviews! They make everything glow, no matter how crazy life gets. You all deserve wonderful prizes! 


	13. Experimenting

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Twelve: Experimenting  
  
by thelittletree  
  
The next morning, Tifa worked to make as little noise as possible getting back through Lily's front door, but she needn't have bothered she realized as she entered. Lily was already awake with a tea and a smoke at the table.  
  
"There you are," the older woman greeted her, ruffling a hand through her feathery hair. She was dressed already, as if she'd been up for hours. "Have some tea. Where've you been?" She didn't sound worried, exactly; curious, and maybe a little surprised that Tifa had left in the night. But not worried.  
  
"Upstairs," Tifa answered, closing the door behind her. "On Vincent's couch."  
  
"My couch too uncomfortable?"  
  
Tifa smiled as she sat down in a chair and shook her head. "No, your couch is fine. I just wanted some company, I guess."  
  
"Was he awake?"  
  
"Yeah. I think he's sleeping now, though."  
  
Lily nodded and knocked some ash from the end of her cigarette into a tray. "That's good. He doesn't sleep enough." She took a sip of tea from her mug. "If you're hungry, there're scrambled eggs in that covered pan."  
  
Tifa got herself some eggs and tea and made herself some toast. And then she sat down again and started eating.  
  
"So, did you guys talk last night?"  
  
Tifa shrugged a little and waited a moment to finish chewing. "A little. Just about how he came here to Nibelheim. Though I'm not sure he appreciated me being there."  
  
"Why's that?"  
  
"Well, he hardly said anything."  
  
Lily waved a dismissive hand. "He hardly ever says anything. The man's a closed box. Just do what you want. He'll let you know if you've stepped over the line. He's got this glare." She dropped her chin, forced her mouth into a stern line and stared hard at Tifa.  
  
And the impression was fairly good, Tifa thought; recognizable from Avalanche. She couldn't help but laugh.  
  
Lily broke into a grin and gestured with her cigarette. "Don't let the 'cold' act fool you. Sometimes he wants to be left alone, and I've got my own life down here, around town. But he wouldn't want to be alone forever." She took a drag and blew the smoke away from the table. "He reminds me of a man I knew in Midgar a few years ago, really...what's the word? Taciturn. That's what my husband called him. Lived alone; never married; ran a pharmacy by himself. Then the sector seven plate fell, and there were a lot of people without kids, parents, houses. A lot of injuries, a lot of people grieving. And, this guy, he opened his store to people, opened his home. Completely unexpected. He was still kind of gruff, and I can't say I ever really held a conversation with him, but people recognized him after that and talked to him in the street. And he seemed a lot happier. No longer so alone." She sighed suddenly and glanced away, pursing her lips. "Wonder what ever happened to him."  
  
So many deaths, Tifa thought suddenly. So many who didn't make it out of Midgar, who'd had lives ahead of them.  
  
And she'd wanted to kill herself. How unbearably absurd it all was. She broke off a piece of toast and stirred her eggs around with it. "Is Vincent happy, do you think?"  
  
Lily raised her eyebrows and a corner of her mouth curled upward. "Doesn't he look happy?"  
  
Tifa chuckled quietly and put the bit of toast into her mouth.  
  
Lily shrugged. "As happy as anyone, I guess. You'd have to ask him." She took another pull on her cigarette and puffed out the smoke. "Why'd you ask?"  
  
"I don't know. Maybe I want to know there's hope for me." She gave a quick smile and poked the eggs with her fork. "Did he ever talk to you about...his past?"  
  
Lily gave a small laugh like scoff. "A closed box, remember? And I don't open someone else's boxes without permission." And then she sighed a little and smiled gently at Tifa. "I think I know what this is about. Not everyone deals with things in the same way, you know. I needed to talk about my husband; maybe Vince just needed time. Everyone's different. You know you can talk to me, if you need to. And you can talk to Vincent. He doesn't say much, but he listens. You can see it in his eyes; he knows what it's like to lose someone. Or you can just stay here for a little while, until you've got things sorted out inside yourself. Whatever you need."  
  
Tifa nodded toward her plate and reached for her tea. "Thanks, Lily. Maybe I'll stay for a little while longer, if it's okay. I don't..." She stopped to take a sip from her mug. "I don't have anything to go back to in Kalm, really. Just mounds of debt."  
  
Lily seemed to sit up in her seat. "You want a job in town?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Just to earn a little money, you know. And it would keep you busy. There's a man who runs a kind of herb and health store a couple of blocks away. A few weeks ago his daughter went off to Cosmo Canyon to get educated, and he's got no part-time help anymore. He'd be grateful for any time you could give, and he'd pay you."  
  
Tifa thought about it for a moment. "Maybe. It might be nice to have something to do." And then she caught herself with an apologetic wince. "Not that cooking and gardening and playing poker aren't good things to do, too."  
  
Lily scoffed again with an unoffended smile and knocked the ash from the end of her cigarette. "Hey, to each her own, I guess. And I do more than just cook and garden and play poker." She smiled and brought the butt to her mouth to take a drag. "I smoke, too, remember."  
  
***  
  
The more she thought about it as the day went by, the more Tifa expected that she would like a job. She didn't really have any skills beyond fighting and running a bar, but she'd always been somewhat of a quick study. And it would give her an income. Some she could save, and some she could give to Vincent and Lily for letting her stay there.  
  
She spent the morning in the garden with Lily, and then managed to make up a suitable excuse as Lily prepared lunch that left her free to go upstairs and warn Vincent that they were coming.  
  
She found him in his kitchen with black sleeves folded up to his elbows (one metal, one flesh and bone), doing his dishes. He barely glanced at her as she greeted him.  
  
Her first impulse as she watched him was to leave him to what he was doing. But Lily had told her to do what she wanted; Vincent had told her to do what she liked; if he didn't like it, he would let her know. She took a breath and came to stand beside him, one hip leaning into the counter. He continued washing the dishes, unaffected.  
  
"Do you want some help?"  
  
He didn't reply. There were a few strands of hair, too short to fit back into a ponytail, that fell into his face as he hunched over the sink. It was an old urge, one Cloud had said he'd hated, to push the hair aside, sweep it over his ear, out of his way. But she curbed the impulse, feeling a little embarrassed by it considering that this was not Cloud but Vincent, and went to look for a dish towel. When she found one, she set herself up to his right and started drying what he put into the rack. He didn't protest.  
  
A couple of minutes passed this way. Tifa was interested to watch the way he held the dishes in his metal hand: loosely and with his fingers out of the way, so there was a smaller chance he would damage them, she thought. But still he scoured them with a nimble kind of swiftness that soon left her in his dust. Before he was done, however, Tifa found herself glancing toward the door between plates, as if she expected Lily to burst into the apartment without warning. As if it was her responsibility to make sure Vincent didn't get caught. Silly, she chided herself, but she couldn't help moving to the kitchen doorway to look again.  
  
"You don't have to keep doing that," Vincent said quietly as she peeked once more around the corner. "I'll hear her coming up the stairs."  
  
"Oh." She put the dried plate on the table with the others. And then pursed her lips. Well, what did she have to lose? "You know, you really shouldn't be standing on that leg at all."  
  
It was almost a sigh. But not a glare. He kept washing.  
  
"I could finish these for you, and you could sit down for a minute before she comes."  
  
Vincent still made no reply. And Tifa fought with herself for a moment. It was a little like what arguing with Cloud had been like in the end: she'd talked and he'd ignored her -- until she'd hit some particularly volatile topic, and then he'd blown up at her. Eventually she'd learned when to stop talking. Maybe she still knew when to stop talking.  
  
But this wasn't Cloud. She'd screamed; she'd thrown things; she'd been difficult. And he hadn't gotten angry. Did she really think he was liable to fly into a raging temper if she stepped on his toes a little? This wasn't Cloud, she told herself again. He would let her know. She quietly cleared her throat. "It's only going to take longer to heal if you keep trying to..."  
  
Vincent closed his eyes and raised a sudsy hand up from the sink to interrupt her. "I know." And then he glanced at her, looking faintly resigned; and she had the sudden notion that he'd had discussions like this with Lily. "I'll dry." He hitched himself away from the sink and pointed at the towel she was holding.  
  
"Oh." She handed it to him and he dried his hands off. Then he moved toward the table and lowered himself into his usual chair.  
  
And Tifa couldn't help smiling as she took over where he'd left off, handing dishes to him as she finished with them.  
  
Like pulling the queen of hearts.  
  
***  
  
Lily said nothing when she arrived about the fact that Tifa was doing Vincent's dishes, though Tifa had been inwardly composing an excuse. They simply had lunch once the dishes were put away, and then Lily got up from the table, saying she had some things to do in town.  
  
"You want to come with me? We can check out that health store, see if he's still looking for help."  
  
Tifa glanced up as she swallowed the last of her leftover stew. "Sure, that sounds good." She stood and picked up the plates from around the table to put them by the sink.  
  
Lily was smirking a little as Tifa turned back to her. "Don't do too much for him." She indicated Vincent with a wink. "He'll get used it and then I'll have to do it all when you leave."  
  
Vincent didn't dignify her playful barb with a response. Tifa only shrugged with a smile. "I guess it just comes from years of waitressing."  
  
Lily looked like she might continue with the light-hearted teasing, but then her expression sobered a little as she seemed to remember something. "Oh, Vince, before I forget again. You got rent money for me? I need it before I go out."  
  
He nodded and Tifa caught his eye as he gave her the briefest of glances, just a flicker of red, before he put his hands on the table as if to push himself up. "In the bedroom."  
  
And Tifa seamlessly picked up her cue. "I'll get it."  
  
His gil was in piles on his dresser, glinting dully yellow in the sunlight. One pile was a little removed from the others and, just to confirm it further, there was a small folded piece of paper beside it with the name 'Lily' scrawled on it. She pulled the pile into her hand and left the bedroom.  
  
It wasn't until they were outside and about a block from the house that Lily finally brought it up. And Tifa found that she wasn't really surprised.  
  
"Okay, what's going on? I get the feeling you and Vince are keeping something from me."  
  
Tifa tried to look suitably unassuming. "What do you mean?"  
  
Lily narrowed her eyes, though she was still smiling. "Don't do that. I can see right through that fake innocence." She fished around in her pockets for her cigarettes and lighter. "So, you going to tell me, or am I just going to have to find out on my own?"  
  
Tifa sighed, not sure how to answer. Vincent had his reasons for not wanting Lily to know, and she'd fairly promised to keep it a secret. She opened her mouth to fumble through a reply, but Lily waved a dismissive hand.  
  
"Nevermind. Told you not to say anything, right? Well, it's not your responsibility anyway." She pulled a cigarette into her mouth and lit it. "Goddamn stubborn," she muttered. "He probably wouldn't tell me if he was at death's door."  
  
And Tifa thought she was probably right.  
  
Mr. Fallowfield at the health store was a tall, overweight man with a pleasant smile and a quick way of bantering that nearly outdid Lily. It wasn't hard for Tifa to see that he'd likely been a very good-looking and charming young man, years ago. When he was introduced to her, he shook her hand and seemed delighted by the idea that she wanted to help him out. Soon, they were arranging her first shift for that week, a few hours like a trial run to see if it worked for everyone involved. And by the time they left, Tifa was looking forward to getting out of the house and doing something that felt like a landmark on the road to earning a living.  
  
It had been such a long time since she'd felt she could stand on her own two feet.  
  
***   
  
Vincent had slept until almost half past nine that morning, a record for him. And it had been uninterrupted sleep, far below the reach of his nightmares and the fiery ache in his leg. And it had been wonderful to wake up in the same position he'd gone to sleep in, without having the sheets tangled around him as if he had been fighting with something in the night. Wonderful enough for him to wonder what exactly it had been that he'd done differently than other nights. Not the alcohol; that was nothing new. Not the weariness in his bones or the injury in his thigh; not the first time he'd been tired or hurt before.  
  
It didn't take him long to come to the most obvious conclusion, as unfounded as it seemed. Tifa had come up to his apartment in the night, drowning in her own grief and looking, he presumed, for some solace in company, conversation and, when those had failed, whiskey. He didn't know why that would make a difference. Maybe because he had been forced to watch that pain he understood outside of himself. Maybe simply because he hadn't been alone in the dark.  
  
Maybe because she'd had the nightmares, out there on his couch. He was tempted to ask her, as odd as the question would sound.  
  
And he decided to try an experiment. That evening, after supper, after a few rounds of poker (Lily seemed particularly vengeful for some reason and she managed to win a couple of hands against both himself and Tifa), after the others had gone downstairs, he took some painkillers and went to sit on his couch.  
  
And he wasn't disappointed. It was nearly midnight when he could hear her shuffling around outside his door. And then she gave a timid knock.  
  
He took a breath. This was Tifa. It didn't matter if she was in a nightie again. It was Tifa. And maybe, this way, they were helping each other out. He wasn't selfless; he wasn't a hero. But tonight it didn't matter. It didn't matter, if he could just sleep like a normal human being for a few more hours...  
  
"Come in."  
  
***  
  
Okay, I have to go do my laundry now. Thanks for reviews, everybody! 


	14. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Thirteen: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back  
  
by thelittletree  
  
"I really shouldn't be doing this," Tifa admitted, taking another shot and giving a bitter grimace at the burning aftertaste. "This is all I did the week after he left. It was the only way I could sleep at night." She handed the bottle back to him and gave a quiet burp that surprised her into an embarrassed smile. "Excuse me." She pushed her hair out of her face and took a breath. And hesitated. "Damn, forgot what I was saying."  
  
She was getting drunk; not heavily, this was only her second shot, and maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to let her drink too much tonight. Not that there were many shots left in the bottle anyway, he thought, eyeing the inch or so of alcohol still lining the bottom. He would have to go shopping again soon if he wanted to keep his supply alive. "The perfect bar..."  
  
"Oh right, right." She took another breath, turning her eyes to the ceiling as she presumably recalled events. "I found the perfect house, and so Cloud and I moved in. But that's where it all went wrong. He was angry all the time and I didn't know why. And he seemed angry at me, but I didn't know what I was doing to upset him. It took me awhile to realize that it was because of..." She shrugged a little, dropping her eyes. "...of Aeris. He was still in love with her."  
  
Not a surprise. It hadn't been hard to see his infatuation with the fragile-looking creature. There had been many times, Vincent remembered, where he'd come back to camp in the night after a hunt (he'd learned early on -- days after leaving the mansion -- to observe the precaution of keeping *them* sated) to find Cloud and Aeris sitting together by the fire while the others slept. Aeris talking, asking the curious questions of a girl who is interested in a boy, listening in rapt attention to Cloud's quiet responses, giggling when he smiled. A simple kind of fondness that had taken him back, sometimes sickeningly, to the months of innocence before he and Lucrecia had stopped caring about protocol enough to find each other in the night.  
  
"I wasn't Aeris, and I couldn't be Aeris, and I just became so angry. But I was scared, too, that he would leave." She frowned and Vincent noticed her eyes straying to the bottle in his hand again. "We just got angry at each other, I guess, and then all we did was fight. Fight, and make love out of commiseration, I think. And then he just left one night. Just got out of bed without waking me, walked out the door, and..." She sighed. "Never came back." And then she nibbled her bottom lip and reached for the whiskey.  
  
Vincent let her take it. She took a quick swig and then wiped a trickle from the side of her mouth, half grinning. "Sloppy," she said quietly, as if it was an apology. And then she gestured the bottle back to him. "Maybe you'd better hold on to that. I shouldn't have any more."  
  
He reached over and placed the bottle on the coffee table. Tifa was watching him, he realized, as he sat back again. He made an effort not to notice. *Something* there still, in having her eyes on him. Tifa, not Lucrecia, he reminded himself. But he still couldn't relax again until she glanced away, into her lap.  
  
"You are a good listener, you know. Lily was right," she told him, picking at her thumbnails. "Thanks, in case I don't remember to thank you later." She glanced up with another smile and then blinked a little. "Oh, maybe that last shot was a mistake." She took a breath and then gave a soft chuckle under her breath. "Sorry in advance if I pass out again."  
  
It didn't bother him. Once she was asleep, he would sleep. Not exactly impatient for it, though. He'd learned the value of waiting, crouched behind the scope of a sniper rifle.  
  
Tifa sighed and swept the hair away from her face again with a gesture he imagined was largely unconscious. "After he left, I didn't open the bar for a couple of weeks. First week, I drank a lot, and I slept a lot." She paused a moment and twitched her lips in something that might've been self-reproach. "I also cried a lot. And then I opened the bar again because I had no food left and I needed the money. But it didn't do very well. And without Cloud's income, I was barely making the lease payments. So..." She shrugged her shoulders and glanced at the bottle. But then she looked away. "So, I just got sick of it one day, I guess. Tired of waiting for things to get better. And the bridge seemed like the perfect...um...you know." She frowned a little as the word she'd been about to use eluded her. And then she blinked again and sighed. "I don't know." And then she took a breath. "Wait, what was I saying?"  
  
He didn't reply; the gash was beginning to ache and, just as he'd expected, itch. Irritated skin trying to heal around the thread. The thread was made to break down with time, but that wouldn't be for weeks yet, long after the actual injury had disappeared. And the itch would remain like a phantom wound. Restlessly, he brushed his hand over his pants and rubbed at the spot with a thumb, trying to subdue the itch without causing any damage to the stitches.  
  
Tifa was watching him again. He could nearly feel her gaze.  
  
"Does it itch?"  
  
He gave a small nod.  
  
"Didn't I give you something for that?" She sounded as if she wasn't quite sure.  
  
The creme was in the bathroom. Tonight, before he went to bed, he would use it.  
  
"I know a trick that'll stop it itching." She put her hand against her own leg. "I did this in the hospital, when I couldn't stand it anymore. Like this, just with the edge of your nail. Though..." She frowned at his hand. "Your nails are too short. Here, like this..."  
  
It was a clumsy lunge across the couch, gravity pulling her down as she moved, and she laughed as he caught her wrist firmly in his fingers, like nabbing a speeding ball out of the air, before she could touch him.  
  
Tifa, Lucrecia, it suddenly didn't matter. She fell sideways and landed with her head beside him, peering up at him through her hair. "Phew," she breathed with a grin, "I'm dizzy." And then she blinked, as if the reclined position was making her realize her weariness. "Why didn't you ever join us?" she asked suddenly, pushing her hair away from her face with slow fingers. "Barret would've dealt you in. I would've made him, anyway." She laughed again, softly. "Though you would've taken all our gil."  
  
Her arm had gone limp in his grip. He moved her hand away from himself and let it fall to her side. Muscles tensed, his wound burning. Fight or flight, but now that the initial moment of panic was over the urge was fading. This, perhaps, had been a bad idea in the end.  
  
"Cid might've given you some of his...you know, cigarettes." She opened her mouth in a silent yawn. "God, I'm tired now." She blinked again, then smiled a little grimly. "You know, I asked Lily if you two were lovers." She chuckled suddenly to herself and after a moment it turned into a sigh. "Sharing the same cigarette. It's intimate, sort of like kissing. So's drinking out of the same bottle, though, right?" She glanced up at him, one weary eyebrow stuttering upward. "Like an open-mouth kiss. That's what Cloud told me." And then she frowned at herself. "I'm...not making any sense, am I? Told you that last one was a bad idea." She dropped her cheek against the seat cushion and closed her eyes. "I think I might sleep," she murmured.  
  
He was grateful for that. The conversation had taken a decidedly unsettling turn.  
  
By the time he draped a blanket over her, she was almost too far gone to realize he was still in the room. And then he took a couple of painkillers, and tonight applied creme to the wound. It didn't sting, but it was uncomfortable at first. Though he imagined he would get used to that eventually.  
  
And then he slept. Blessedly dreamless sleep until the early morning. When he finally dreamed.  
  
The memory of a kiss. The memory of an open mouth beneath his own under sweaty sheets, lost in sensation, skin on skin, just moving together in the shared joy of giving, receiving pleasure...  
  
A long, long time since he'd had this dream. Not since the mansion, after she'd stopped coming to him, talking to him. But he knew what happened next. Those green eyes, like hard emeralds, and he would wake up suddenly.  
  
But, it was different. Dark eyes instead, brown-burgundy, staring up at him through a cascade of hair; not like gems, but like cimmerian wine: ripe grapes -- crushed, bottled, and then shoved away onto a precarious shelf. Waiting to be rescued from the possibility of falling, or of being forgotten there forever.  
  
And he gasped himself awake.  
  
He'd heard somewhere that a man who has never tasted alcohol doesn't know what he's missing when there's none to drink. But he had not abstained in his youth. Don't mix business with pleasure they'd told him; but he'd been in love and it had been such a temptation with her whispered promises, her hasty kisses in dark hallways, her teasing hands...  
  
And even after thirty years of dead sleep, still human enough to feel that terrible thirst...  
  
***  
  
Tifa was gone when he came out of the room. And he sighed in some relief at the empty, rumpled blanket on the couch.  
  
Not since the mansion. He pushed the shower curtain aside. And then forced himself to stand in the icy spray until his traitor flesh was numb again.  
  
***  
  
"Okay."  
  
Tifa looked up from what she'd been doodling on the edge of a scrap of paper and reflexively reached for her morning tea to take a sip.  
  
Lily was frowning a little as she brought the cigarette to her mouth, though she didn't put it between her lips. "He'd keep it from me if he was hurt. I know that much." She ran a thumb over her chin as she thought. "So that's what I'm thinking. His foot, his leg; something. Haven't seen him do anything but sit since he came back from Kalm." She met Tifa's eyes. "Am I close?"  
  
Tifa blew her breath out and flipped the pen in her fingers. "Lily, you're putting me in the middle..."  
  
"No, I know. I know." She waved her cigarette in a dismissive gesture. And then she brought it back to her mouth and took a drag. Sighed. "I know, but at least tell me he's taking care of himself. That's all I'm asking."  
  
Tifa grimaced to herself and looked down at the paper. What was she supposed to do? The frown deepened as she realized that she'd been drawing a 'C'. She scribbled it out quickly. "All right." She took a breath. "I've been helping him a little, when he lets me."  
  
Lily raised an eyebrow, but she nodded. "I'm glad for that." And then she sighed again. "Confuses me, though." She kept her eyes down as she reached for her own tea. "He lets you know, but he hides it from me like I'd want to cauterize the thing."  
  
And Tifa smiled. Despite the lingering effects of the whiskey in the sunlit kitchen, that familiarly tight ache under the skin of her temples, she couldn't help but be sort of amused. Was Lily feeling jealous that Vincent's attention might be divided? When Tifa spoke, though, she kept her tone neutral. "He didn't let me know. I found out by accident, when I went to take his shirt up. He was in his bathroom, stitching himself up."  
  
Lily suddenly winced a little. "God, I had to do his shoulder for him once. Wouldn't even put any ice on it first. He just sat there, not moving, hardly even making a sound." She sucked a breath in through her teeth and shook her head. "Nasty, bloody cut. Wouldn't even tell me how he got it. And he got so sick of me after a couple of days. Poor Vince." She took a pull on the cigarette and then chuckled the smoke back out. "I kept coming up to make sure he wasn't overdoing anything, to check to make sure he wasn't letting it get infected. But that man." She shook her head again and flicked some ash into the tray. "Barely takes care of himself. I don't think he eats unless I cook for him, and sometimes I can hear him pacing up there at night. Worries me sometimes."  
  
Tifa wondered suddenly if she'd ever seen him sleep when they'd made camp; couldn't recall. "Well, he was sleeping when I left. At least I'm pretty sure he was. If not, he was being awfully quiet."  
  
"Yeah, that's his specialty most of the time." She took another drag on her cigarette. "Well, I'm going to hope he was sleeping. It won't fatten him up, but it might give him a little bit of colour."  
  
Tifa wasn't so sure about that.  
  
They spent a good hour or so in the garden that morning. And, despite herself, Tifa's mind began to stumble over a period she couldn't quite remember from the night before. Talking with Vincent about Cloud; taking that third shot and knowing as it burned its way down that it had probably been one too many -- it had been hard to care, though; and then...not quite a blank, but a blur so that she knew she hadn't passed out right away. An interval she couldn't recall; and the chagrin was like a knot in her stomach as she wondered whether she might've done something to embarrass herself.  
  
It was nearly lunch time when they went up together to Vincent's apartment. And Vincent was, unsurprisingly, in his chair at the table. Lily, Tifa noticed out of the corner of her eye, smirked to herself but said nothing.  
  
Vincent didn't look at her as she sat. Or as they ate. Or as Lily began to search through her coat for her cards. And Tifa began to recognize that avoidance. And it gave her a sinking feeling. Last night had been comfortable, for once, in his apartment, just the two of them. A little like it might've been if they'd been old friends. Whiskey to break the ice, and no longer so aware of the changes in him. As if he might have always been this way, as if they might have met sometimes at midnight in another life.  
  
And now, as if she might've dreamed the whole thing, because he seemed to have forgotten how to meet her eyes.  
  
"Damn." Lily gave up the search with a loud sigh and ran a hand through her hair. "I must've left the cards in my kitchen. Vince, would you be a gentleman and go get them for me?"  
  
Tifa saw his chin come up as he glanced at Lily. And then he seemed to read something in her expression that tipped him off, and he let out a breath through his nose.  
  
Lily smiled tightly at him. "Not a gentleman today, I guess." She pulled the cards out of a pocket and, slipping them out of their box, began to shuffle them. "Don't blame Tifa; she held her tongue to the end. I figured it out for myself. But I'm not going to bug you about it. You don't need two women doing your dishes." She began to deal. "Now, let's play poker." And, like that, she seemed to put it behind her.  
  
Vincent was distracted, it wasn't hard to see. Lily made no mention of it as they played, but Tifa found herself hard-pressed not to ask him what was wrong, if she'd done something inappropriate the night before. Apologize, maybe, if that was the problem; though she wondered if the damage had already been done with no hope of repair. He made no attempts even to look beyond the finished wood of the table top. Angry? Offended? Uncomfortable? It was so hard to tell what he was feeling beyond that first expressionless wall.  
  
After the fifth game, Lily made an excuse about there being something she'd forgotten to do, and she went downstairs. Tifa picked up the cards, preparing to deal the sixth hand for two, when Vincent pushed himself out of the chair and made his way into the living room. Tifa sighed quietly and gathered the cards up again.  
  
"Vincent, wait."  
  
He didn't stop, on his way to the bedroom she supposed. Tifa hesitated a moment before following him.  
  
The limp seemed less noticeable now, but it still slowed him down a little. "Vincent, wait a second. Wait." She came up beside him, ready to duck in his path if he was going to continue ignoring her. She was half expecting the 'glare' since she guessed this was probably over the line Lily had told her about.  
  
But he didn't glare. If she'd come up next to him with a knife, she might've anticipated the same reaction.  
  
He stepped away from her, faster than a man with a leg injury had any right to, his hand coming up as if to push her away, though she hadn't been that close. And for a moment, he met her eyes.  
  
And she saw fear. The unease of a man, torn between two potent and opposite urges, both under tenuous control. It made her stop and stand where she was.  
  
And then she went downstairs.  
  
That night, she stayed on Lily's couch, wakeful until the early hours of morning. And Vincent didn't sleep at all.  
  
***  
  
Job hunt and apartment hunt are still on, full throttle. I don't know if I'll be doing anymore one-a-day chapters for a little while. *sigh*  
  
Thanks so much for reviews, and for reading! 


	15. Schism

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Fourteen: Schism  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Tifa didn't see Vincent again before she left the next morning for her first shift at Mr. Fallowfield's store. And for this she was both grateful and a little grieved. It was like going to bed angry, she thought, and then waking up, not knowing what to say; and so, not saying anything. It didn't solve anything, it didn't make anyone feel any better. But it felt safer than risking the emotional shame and discomfort of a confrontation.  
  
And right now, she wasn't sure she was up to dealing with more emotional complications. She'd thought he'd had a handle on it (he'd seemed easier in her presence since returning from Kalm), but Vincent was still physically uncomfortable with her, still attracted to her, and still obviously against his will. *Something* had happened that second night in his living room to bring it back for him, and she felt inclined now to let him retreat if he wanted to. She had her own life to worry about, to start over again, and it didn't exactly require Vincent's friendship. Maybe she was curious about him, how three years had changed him; maybe indebted to him; maybe she'd even begun to sort of enjoy his company. But she had nothing to give him. She didn't have the strength to try and chase someone else out of their shell.  
  
Mr. Fallowfield greeted her warmly when she arrived at his door and set to work enthusiastically introducing her to the inner workings of his little business. It was hard not to become interested in this stuff, she quickly realized, with him as her guide. He'd obviously devoted a lot of his life to learning about natural cures for injuries and diseases, and he genuinely believed in the things he sold. He had a number of stories, which he narrated like glowing testimonials, that were all the more convincing because he was on a first-name basis with most of his customers. She thought with some confidence that she would enjoy working here.  
  
It was very different than running a bar, and not only in atmosphere and goods provided she quickly realized. The people who came into a health store were a very different type of people, most of the time, than those who came into a pub. They had questions, and ailments or sick family members; they had skepticism, hope, optimism; they had products they'd used for years, or a willingness to learn about things they'd never heard of before. They had lives behind them, lives ahead of them without answers provided by the progress of Shinra; quiet words to say about the time they'd spent 'since Meteor', as if it had been a sort of judgment day they'd only just avoided. They were looking for a better way to do things.  
  
Not like the downcast patrons of her former bar, who weren't looking for hope but an escape. No wonder she'd gotten so depressed...  
  
This was a town recovering from the decimation of advancement -- naive pawns, infantry on the front lines, moved first by Shinra to cover up the fire and then brought, like the rest of the world, to the brink of disaster. All for money, power, on the pretext of glorious enrichment for everyone. But what enrichment had been frighteningly revealed: North Corel, razed by Shinra; the Gongoga reactor, the presumed-virtuous killer of children and the elderly; Nibelheim, burned by Shinra's greatest experiment gone wrong; Midgar, the crushed slums, the doom of Meteor as its massive gravity brought to life an army of deadly swirling tornadoes, reducing to debris in seconds what had taken years to build.  
  
It all came back to Nibelheim, where she'd lost everything for the first time. It had happened again in Midgar, then in Kalm; the details of her life ripped away every time she'd tried to make a new start. But it always came back to Nibelheim, if only because that's where it had all began.  
  
It was just time, maybe, to finally heal that old wound, to find a remedy for this reoccurring malady. Vincent had brought her here, not because he thought the location would do anything for her, she presumed, but just to postpone her deathwish until it had fizzled. But now she was beginning to believe that nothing less than Nibelheim, than seeing her old home town pulling itself up by the bootlaces, would have helped her quite as much. The hard way always seemed to involve facing the past somewhere along the line.  
  
Homeopathy, Mr. Fallowfield explained to her, was the science of using like to cure like. A little bit of the cause to heal the hurt.  
  
If Nibelheim could do it... If Lily could do it...  
  
If Vincent, who she'd always sort of expected to go back inside that coffin, also left scorched inside by love, also put through hell (perhaps a darker hell than she wanted to think about) and left to die, could do it...  
  
She'd always been the strong one. A broken-heart had been the thing to knock her to the ground for the third time in her life, but Zangan had taught this girl how to get back on her feet.  
  
And Vincent, too, had thought her capable enough to plunge himself under...  
  
***  
  
He'd waited by the window, glancing out until she'd crossed the square, oblivious to her observer as she'd peered around herself, breathing in her surroundings. He'd felt slightly ridiculous, watching her leave Lily's house for her first day on a job Lily had introduced her to; slightly uncomfortable to realize that he'd been staring at the way her hair ruffled in the breeze that always seemed to be floating down from the mountains.  
  
And his mind had gone on, inevitably, with the comparison. The memory of a woman crossing the streets of Nibelheim alone when he usually would've been with her, her fingers gently placed in the crook of his elbow. Watching her bitterly, miserably, chafing at the window in what Gast had jokingly labeled 'Turk territory'. Her territory, too, once; the one place they'd been assured of their privacy. So many nights, so many quiet conversations with her head on his chest as he'd skimmed his fingers down the familiar curve of her back. So much comfort and the wonderful knowledge that he wasn't alone in his universe any more.  
  
Such a bad idea, in the end. He couldn't have left her in the water, but to bring her home... He should've guessed. He should've known what his subconscious mind was up to. A fool to have refused to analyze his own actions for fear of discovering what he hadn't wanted to know.  
  
And now it had all been blown wide open again. All of the pain, memories, feelings he'd managed to wad into a ball and push far down inside of him so that he could move on with this semblance of a life. To live alone on a planet that even Lily only orbited, but at least he was sort of living.  
  
To think he wouldn't have become vulnerable again. Such a fool. Had he believed himself invincible? Even Turks had been known to bleed now and again, he should've remembered. Somewhere between human and something else; but still with those frailties that made humans human...   
  
This was what he would've died to escape. The guilt, the memory of soured love and caustic hate, the recognition of how terrible it was to be alone in his pain. This was what he'd taught himself to forget. This was what he needed to forget again.  
  
Tifa was strong, a fighter. Tifa knew about healing, about recuperating from a loss, physical or emotional. Maybe she'd wanted to kill herself, but she would heal again. There was no doubt in his mind about that.  
  
The Turks had known about healing, too. But it had not been a job where anyone really cared about your health. You healed enough to ensure your survival, and then you put yourself at risk again. Until the bullet with your name on it finally found you. Not a high life-expectancy, so what did your health matter? You killed people, had nightmares, but it came with the job. You didn't see a therapist. You didn't talk about it with anyone. You just continued to survive to the best of your abilities.  
  
So maybe he'd never learned to heal. He'd learned to survive instead. The bare minimum, but he could be content with it, if only he could forget again.  
  
The wound was still sore, but the comfrey creme was working miracles with the skin around his stitches so that even the wearing of his pants against his thigh wasn't irritating. Hitching himself across the living room, he made his way to the stairs and took the steps one at a time. A slow way to have to do it, but he'd resigned himself to patience in this; if he wanted it to heal so that he could get out on the hunt once more, he would have to be careful.  
  
He went around to Lily's door, squinting in the sunshine. It wasn't often that he made his way outside during the day. Not exactly adverse to the sun (he always traveled to Kalm during the day in order to take the most advantage of the night hours), but he rarely had cause to leave his apartment, or any inn he was staying at, until the stars were coming out. And though the air of Nibelheim was cool in the evenings (cool even at the best of times), he found that he preferred it to the busy sunlight of day. Less people out, less discomfort. Almost invisible.  
  
He knocked.  
  
"Out here, Vince. In the garden."  
  
He made his way around the side of the house. Lily was sitting on her heels with her dirt-stained hands on dirt-stained knees, a grin on her face as she peered at him from under her hat. "Well, if it isn't the man who wouldn't be, limp and all. Why don't you sit down?" She gestured vaguely behind her at the two chairs.  
  
Vincent took the invitation and lowered himself into a chair. Half expecting the question, he wasn't surprised when Lily, already turned back to her garden as if the answer wasn't that important, asked, "So, you taking it easy up there?"  
  
He sighed audibly. "Yes."  
  
He heard her chuckle a little. "Good. And I promise that's all I'm going to say about it. I just wondered since Tifa isn't around to help you today." She sat up again and gave a grunt as she got to her feet. And then she spent an extra moment looking down at her array of flowers. "Pretty, aren't they?"  
  
Vincent eyed them obediently. "I don't know much about flowers," he admitted, and not for the first time. But he knew that Lily didn't care about that. He'd always gotten the impression that it wasn't so much his opinion she was after, but his notice; after all, very few besides Lily ever saw her garden.  
  
"Doesn't matter. You don't have know about them to have an appreciation." She wiped her hands on her pants and came to sit in the chair beside him. "So, you come down here for a reason, or just to chat?" She pulled out her package of cigarettes and a lighter from her pockets.  
  
He took a breath, still staring off towards the flowers though he wasn't particularly looking at them. With Lily there was never any need for skirting the issue, and he'd never been the type to mince words. "Tifa should head back to Kalm."  
  
Lily paused in the act of lighting the end of her cigarette and turned to him. "What?" she demanded, looking confused and even a little angry. "What the hell are you talking about?"  
  
And with Lily, it was always better to keep eye contact or she tended to interrupt. "She can't stay here forever, Lily."  
  
Lily scoffed and then gave herself a moment to light up. And then she puffed out a mouthful of smoke. "Why not? She's already said she's got nothing back in Kalm. And I've told her she can stay as long as she wants. Got a job now, she could get a place in town." She took another drag and breathed the smoke away from herself. "She could start again here. Don't be an ass. She doesn't have to go to Kalm." She scowled and scratched at a cheek with dirty nails.  
  
"She has responsibilities waiting for her in Kalm."  
  
"Well, she can take care of them from here, can't she? Go up with you on your damn chocobo sometime, pay her debts and whatever. She doesn't have to move back there to do it." She turned away with a short sigh, but after a few seconds the anger seemed to seep out of her. Lily never stayed angry about anything for very long. She turned back and rubbed her face with the palm of one hand, leaving a brown streak across the bridge of her nose. "God. She isn't ready, Vincent. Even you have to be able to see that. She's still recovering. The last thing she needs is to be left alone somewhere."  
  
"She doesn't have to be alone. There were others in Avalanche who would take her in, or who would stay with her."  
  
"What's wrong with staying here, then, if she's just going to go stay with someone else? Other people have their own lives; all we've got is lots of free time." She took another draw from her cigarette and sighed again. "I don't understand you. I really don't. You jump in the water after this girl, save her life, call the damn house to make sure I'm taking care of her, and then..." She paused and eyed him a little caustically. "And then you want to get rid of her. Just like that, put her back into the life that made her want to kill herself in the first place. Without another thought for her. Why the hell did you save her in the first place if you weren't going to give a damn in the end?"  
  
Vincent didn't reply. Lily didn't know about Lucrecia, and he wasn't about to say her dead name aloud, even in the daylight.  
  
"I even thought you two were starting to get along. And seeing the way you..." And then she stopped in the middle of her sentence, her eyes widening as she looked at him. "God, that's it, isn't it? You want her gone 'cause you're attracted to her."  
  
Vincent glanced at her quickly, too surprised to keep his reaction under guard.  
  
Lily's expression hardened into a smirk. "That's no secret, Vince. I'd be amazed if she hasn't noticed." She stretched a little in her chair until an elbow popped. "Nothing to be ashamed of, you know. She's a pretty girl. Sweet." She knocked some ash into the grass. "Asked a lot of questions about you. Not to mention the fact that she keeps wanting to help you. And keeps sneaking up to your apartment in the night. Can't imagine you flirting, but maybe if she didn't think you were such a cold fish she might... Wait, Vince, where're you going?"  
  
He didn't want to hear about how she might be interested in him. He didn't want to hear that she was pretty and it wasn't wrong to be attracted to her. Lily didn't know about thirty-three years ago (only three for him, really); didn't know anything. It was a trap. It had always been a trap. And he wasn't about to fall blindly into it again. He began to make his way back around the house.  
  
"I'm not sending her back to Kalm, Vince," Lily called after him. "If you don't want to see her, then she can stay downstairs with me. And she's going to stay as long as she wants to."  
  
Vincent didn't answer. There was no arguing with Lily when she'd made up her mind. So Lily could do what she wanted. Tied her apron strings a little too tight, it seemed.  
  
But it didn't matter. As long as he didn't see her, maybe it would be enough. And he would have to leave again soon anyway; a couple of days, at the most. Shortened hunt, and *they* were getting restless. For safety's sake, he would have to let them feed.  
  
And it wasn't as if he hadn't gotten used to the nightmares.  
  
***  
  
Tifa arrived in Lily's kitchen late that afternoon, fairly full to the brim with news. Half way through her account of the day, however, she noticed that Lily seemed distracted. A little confused, considering that so far Lily had not seemed the type to brood, she pulled out a chair and sat down. "What's wrong?"  
  
Lily glanced up from where she'd been staring into her tea. "Oh, nothing." She gave a quick smile. "Vince and I have disagreements every so often, that's all; we're both stubborn jackasses in case you haven't noticed. And the man talks about as much as he smiles, so it's not like it ever really gets resolved, but it blows over." She took a sip from the mug and then sighed. "Anyway, what were you saying?"  
  
Tifa didn't start into her story again right away. She had to ask, feeling a kind of urgency to know though she wasn't sure what she hoped the answer would be. "Does this mean no poker night?"  
  
Lily gave another quirk of her lips. "Guess not. Though you and I could play, if you wanted."  
  
But Tifa knew, looking at Lily across the table, that both of them were realizing it wouldn't be anywhere near the same.  
  
***  
  
Yay, I've got an apartment! Yayayay! Now all I need is a job. If only I could get paid for writing this. Ah, the perfect career. :)  
  
You guys are just so great! Thanks so much for reviews! It means so much to know people are reading and liking it, I want to hug you all! BTW, anyone get caught in that blackout? Scary... My boyfriend lit some candles and we played cards in the dark. Not poker, though. Just crazy-eights. And my milk went bad. Yuck.  
  
Oh, and PS/ Thanks for the little bit of editing, Lynx16! *blows a kiss* All is fixed, and it does sound better! 


	16. All Hell

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Fifteen: All Hell  
  
by thelittletree  
  
The next two days passed slowly. Tifa didn't work the first day, and so spent it with Lily in her garden, and then in helping her clean her house: vacuuming, washing, and watching the dust motes float from furniture toward the beckoning sunlight pouring in through the open windows. And then they cooked a tuna-pasta dish with bread crumbled on top. Enough for three, out of habit Lily said, and then she put a portion of it away in the fridge.  
  
Lily didn't talk much as they busied themselves with things, though she would occasionally stop in the middle of what she was doing to listen as a floorboard creaked upstairs. Once, Tifa was sure she heard her mutter, "Wonder if he's got anything to eat." It was a little funny, she thought, that out of all of the things she could be upset about, Lily was only concerned with whether or not Vincent was eating properly. As if the argument itself, who was right and who was wrong, wasn't really very important.  
  
It was strange, too, Tifa mused, to feel in the middle like this. Not since Avalanche -- she the self-proclaimed mediator between Barret and Cloud in the beginning, one old friend and one more recent companion clashing together as they were forced to work out their differences. But here, she was the new-comer, and not even exactly a friend of Vincent's. And it wasn't her place to get involved. Lily hadn't said yet what the fight had been about, and Tifa knew it wasn't her business. Vincent and Lily had been having arguments since long before she'd arrived, and this one would certainly blow over like the others without her help.  
  
The second day she worked at Mr. Fallowfield's store, and she left Lily's kitchen with the distinct impression that the older woman wasn't far from going upstairs, if only to knock and leave a covered pan on Vincent's doorstep. But that afternoon, when she returned, nothing had changed. Lily was working furiously in her garden and for all of the activity going on upstairs the top apartment might as well have been vacant. With a sigh, Tifa entered Lily's kitchen and set about making them some tea.  
  
Lily came in a few minutes later, smiling and dirty. "So, you're back. Pour me a mug of that, will you? I'm going to take a bath."  
  
Tifa opened the refrigerator door to get the milk and noticed that the covered pan from last night was missing, as were the last few containers of stew from the freezer. Had Lily gone up, after all?  
  
The sound of running water was coming from the bathroom. Tifa chewed her lip for a moment before rummaging for a couple of a cigarettes and a spare lighter she found in a basket of change on the counter. A quick shake revealed the presence of a little bit of lighter fluid. With a breath, she steeled herself and headed upstairs.  
  
At first she was going to knock, but as she arrived at his door she changed her mind. The covered pans and bowls were still there on his doorstep, where Lily had evidently left them. And Tifa couldn't help but feel a little offended on behalf of the older woman. An act of generosity, done purely out of concern, negligently scorned. Well, it was Vincent's loss, she thought to herself. If he wanted to be a vitriolic prick, more power to him. She put the cigarettes and the lighter on top of the pile of dishes and turned on the stairwell to go back downstairs.  
  
She was just heading through the bottom door when she heard the sound of a doorknob turning behind her. Quickly, she ducked out of sight. And, after a few seconds, opened the door again, just a crack wide enough to peer through.  
  
The covered pans were still there, she could see. But she was willing to bet any gil that the cigarettes had mysteriously vanished. Whether or not Vincent knew who had brought them up.  
  
It made her smile.  
  
But Lily didn't chuckle when Tifa told her about it. "Maybe you should leave him alone for now," she suggested, staring down at the stubborn dirt lodged under one nail. "He's not going to come out until he's good and ready."  
  
"I didn't knock on his door. I just left the cigarettes there and he took them himself when I left."  
  
"No, I know. I know." She sighed heavily and pushed a hand into her hair. "But I don't think he's going to take either of our company very appreciatively for a little while." She reached for her package of cigarettes and then glanced around. "You didn't give him my lighter, did you?"  
  
"No. Here it is."  
  
"Thanks." She lit the end and took a drag. And then she gave a soft, short-lived chuckle. "Wonder if he was getting withdrawal headaches. Though I'm not sure he's really addicted."  
  
Tifa had been curious before, of course, but now she felt that maybe the question was justified. "Can I ask what this argument was about?" She knew Vincent was uncomfortable around her, but it was hard to think of what problem he would suddenly have with Lily.  
  
Lily glanced up and gave another, quieter sigh. "Don't know if I should tell you."  
  
"Why?" But then she thought she knew. "It was about me?"  
  
"Maybe you've got a right to know, I guess. But I didn't want you to feel like it was your fault or anything." She took another pull on her cigarette and then seemed to take a moment tasting the smoke before breathing it out. "Maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't. I don't know. But, the man gets a feeling and he has to push it away from himself..."  
  
Tifa put a hand out for her tea. It wasn't so strange a thing. Of course she'd noticed, but she also remembered the eerie sound of a woman's voice, echoing off of the dark, oppressive tomb-walls of a cave, beyond the veil of a roaring waterfall, calling the name of a long-dead lover as if she'd sensed his presence in a dream. And watching from behind as Vincent approached the woman with slow, rigid steps as if he was fighting the urge to run. The urge, maybe, to run away from something that hurt so much only because he could still remember how good it had once been.  
  
She knew. If she saw Cloud again, if he showed up without warning in Nibelheim, she would run. Not ready to face him. Run from the possibility of being hurt a second time.  
  
So Vincent had retreated from her, alienated himself from Lily, quarantined himself in his apartment. The fear she'd seen on his face, afraid of something he couldn't control. Afraid to face something he hadn't faced years ago.  
  
Lily had said maybe he'd just needed time. But he hadn't dealt with it at all. Came through it the hard way, and then he'd never truly recovered. Goddamn stubborn, she agreed. But it was still his problem, and she had the feeling Lily had been right about another thing: maybe she would leave him alone for now. His choice whether or not to face his demons, so to speak. She was busy facing her own.  
  
"He wants me to leave, doesn't he?"  
  
Lily licked her lips and reached for her own tea. "You can stay down here. He doesn't have to see you if it's going to put his underwear in a bunch."  
  
And Tifa wanted to stay. She was willing to pay rent to stay. But... "Lily, I don't want to be the cause of problems between you and..."  
  
Lily waved the words away before Tifa could finish and her expression became uncharacteristically grave and determined. "I said you could stay as long as you needed, and I meant it. This is my house, I decide who stays under my roof. And if it came down to it..." She gave a quick shrug with one shoulder that Tifa thought was probably supposed to seem nonchalant. "I'd kick him out before I'd let him chase you off."  
  
Not without compunctions, though, Tifa realized as she watched the older woman flick the ash from her cigarette. Kicked out on bad terms, Vincent probably wouldn't come back. And Lily would always worry about him. So many different kinds of love, and some of them so complicated and caught up in the past...  
  
Amazing, she thought suddenly, that anyone could find happiness in this world. So much loss. So many uncovered graves. Couldn't anyone bury Midgar, or the ashes of Nibelheim?  
  
***  
  
The third day, Tifa went to work again for Mr. Fallowfield. The end of the week and it was a slow shift so that by closing time she was feeling tired and faintly depressed. Mr. Fallowfield, however, seemed in uncommonly good spirits, and as he gave her her hours for the next week he winked and told her the customers were very pleased with his pretty, helpful, smiling part-timer. And he would raise her pay if she promised to stay on for more than a temporary position. It made her feel a little better and she told him she'd think about it as she headed out the door.  
  
Tea was good, but today she was craving coffee. As she came through the door, though, the urge for caffeine was forgotten as she noticed Lily standing in the middle of the kitchen and staring toward the ceiling with a frown on her face. Curious, Tifa glanced up, too.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
Lily put a finger to her lips. "I don't know," she whispered. "Hardly hear anything from him all day, and then there's this..." She shrugged a little and gestured with her hands. "...'bump', I guess."  
  
Tifa hadn't gotten the impression so far that Lily was the type to get unnecessarily worked up about things, but right now she wasn't sure what to think. "Maybe he's moving his furniture around."  
  
"I don't know. Never moved his furniture before." She frowned again, listening. "C'mon, Vince. Where are you? Creak a floorboard or something."  
  
There was nothing for a few seconds. And then another distinct 'thump', as if someone might've fallen against a wall. Lily's expression tightened a fraction. And then she grabbed up her keys.  
  
Tifa followed the older woman up the stairs, automatically observing her example of slow, quiet steps, listening for more noise. And despite herself, she felt her stomach knot with anxiety. It was probably nothing. Maybe he'd tripped over something (not that she could imagine him tripping over something), maybe he'd dropped something heavy. They would open the door and he would 'glare' at the intrusion.  
  
But she'd seen so much, so many seemingly innocuous situations turn drastic in seconds. Heard him take a wound and then muffle the sounds of anguish as his body changed hands...  
  
Impossible to take anything for granted anymore.  
  
The covered pans were still outside of the door, but the cigarettes were indeed gone. Lily barely glanced at the pile of dishes before slipping her key into the lock and turning the knob.  
  
It was a sunny day outside and the rich, cloudless afternoon light streaming through the unveiled western windows threw a pattern of illumination and obscurity around the apartment -- over, under, behind the living room furnishings. A familiar room, a still-familiar mosaic of sunshine and shadow on the carpet, though Tifa hadn't been up here in days to see it.  
  
But Vincent was nowhere in sight. Lily took a step onto the carpet. "Vince? You in here?"  
  
There was a thump from the kitchen, like someone banging a knee against a cupboard. And no other answer.  
  
"Vincent?"  
  
"Get out of here." His voice was rough and edged with pain. And something about it tugged frighteningly at Tifa's memory. Never emotional, but sometimes strained and clipped in the moments before...  
  
Cid's arm a resisting pressure across her collarbones, the brief feel of breath like ashes against her cheek. 'Tifa, get back! Goddammit, he's turning into one of those things again!'  
  
Lily didn't seem afraid. Though, Tifa realized a moment later, she had no reason to be if she didn't know. "You okay, Vince?" She took a couple of steps in the direction of the kitchen.  
  
"Stay there, Lily. Don't come in here."  
  
"Why? What's wrong?"  
  
Vincent gave a sudden choked sound, like catching a grunt of pain before it could be recognized. "Go back downstairs." Another thump, this one louder. "Please, now."  
  
From where she was standing, Tifa couldn't see Lily's face, but her indecision was written in every stiff, worried line of her body. And, hardly realizing she'd moved, Tifa found herself in the living room behind the other woman, one cold hand outstretched as if to draw her back into the safety of the doorway. "Lily, come on..."  
  
Lily glanced over her shoulder as if surprised that Tifa had spoken. And then she consciously looked away, back toward the kitchen. "Shit, this isn't a time to be arrogant, Vince. If you need help, just say so. And if you're not going to tell me what's wrong, I'm going to come in and see for myself."  
  
Tifa felt a thrill of panic tingle along her spine. "No, Lily, we should go..." She realized that she was nearly whispering.  
  
But Lily ignored her and took another step toward the kitchen. "Vince..."  
  
"Don't!" Another thump, something like a groan. All too familiar. "I need to leave." Nearly breathless now. And then something unexpected. "Tifa...hurry, take her downstairs." A plea for help, like throwing a life line into the hands of someone recently spurned, the only one who *could* help.  
  
Another secret, another moment of trust. Something Lily shouldn't know. Something dangerous, though Tifa didn't understand why this might be happening now, why he seemed desperate as if he was losing control; he'd always seemed to hold sway over *them* in battle. But so many things had changed in three years...  
  
"Lily." She grabbed her elbow. "We have to leave. Come on." Pulled her until she was taking steps backward, to the side, if only to keep her balance.  
  
"What the hell's going on?"  
  
One of Vincent's boots was by the coffee table, Tifa noticed distantly. Perhaps he'd been preparing to leave when they'd arrived.  
  
"Tifa. Tifa! Dammit, stop!"  
  
The door, and then down the stairs, and Tifa felt as if her hands had never been weak. Hadn't been able to hold onto Cloud, but by Odin she was not going to let go of Lily.  
  
But it was still too late. Always too long spent waiting. Hell behind them as they reached the bottom door. She could faintly hear the sounds, couldn't quite remember which one they'd belonged to. And then that metallic whine.  
  
Hell...hellmasker. She pulled Lily around and urged her out of the door. "Hurry, back into your apartment."  
  
"But, goddammit, why? What's going on?"  
  
Lily was angry, confused. And Tifa thought she probably would've been, too, in her situation -- angry and scared and worried. But no time to explain. Maybe there would never be the time. She felt displaced, suddenly shifted back into those instinctual tactics for survival. No thought, only action. Save herself and her comrades. Be ready for anything. Her hands felt light as air without the weight of Premium Heart on her knuckles. She felt vulnerable; more vulnerable, somehow, than she had standing and shivering on the edge of the bridge, mere feet from death.  
  
Maybe urged on by Tifa's own sense of urgency, Lily was now walking hastily toward her door. Tifa let her go ahead, not sure herself what she should do. If he was dangerous, could she justify holing away with Lily in the ground-level apartment? Leave him at large in the town? But what else could she do? Weak body, lost training. If she hadn't been able to go up against him as Vincent, what were her chances against one of *them*?  
  
Lily had disappeared through her door. Tifa stood, uncertain and nervous, at the side of the house, just listening. She heard the muffled staccato pounding of feet on the stairs, and then the door at the bottom was forced open through heavy impact. She cringed at the sound and thought about inching toward the doorway to Lily's kitchen.  
  
And then *he* came around the house, walking slowly and glancing around as if scenting the air. And Tifa felt her teeth chatter. She remembered. No face on this one, no expression to read. Just a blank mask to hide the psychotic hate, dark holes for the eyes and mouth, the now-dormant chainsaw, though she had no doubt the thing would have no compunctions about using it.  
  
It turned to her suddenly and gave a hiss, as if it was pleased to have found her. And she had to fight the urge to run. She clenched her shaking fingers into fists.  
  
"Vincent?" Hardly a rasp. She cleared her throat. "Vincent, it's me! Can you hear me?"  
  
If Vincent could, he gave no sign. The thing kept advancing with slow steps, as if to hold onto the moment.  
  
"Vincent!"  
  
From behind the mask came a high-pitched series of sounds that Tifa could only take as laughter. And then the thing spoke in a weedy, demented kind of voice. "Blood. You have blood. I can smell it."  
  
The hair on the back of Tifa's neck prickled to attention. She'd never heard them speak before, never realized they had the intelligence to speak. But their instincts were obviously still first priority. It wanted to feed.  
  
She couldn't stay here, with her back against the wall, nowhere to go but Lily's fenced-in back yard. So many tactical disadvantages about this position, she recognized. But where else could she go? Could she lead it away from Nibelheim? Certainly a death sentence, but at least she'd be the only fatality.  
  
Hopefully the only one. Though she didn't want to die.  
  
At first, she wasn't sure she could push herself away from the house. She wished she could feel that separation from her mind again -- action without thought, just jumping forward with the confidence that she was someone to be reckoned with -- but the training no longer came to her limbs automatically. She was going to have to do this on her own; truly on her own. Steeling herself, she ducked forward and, trying not to look at the creature, made the move to run past it, out into the open roads of Nibelheim.  
  
She hoped others would have the sense to run if they ended up coming across them. If this thing was after blood, she doubted it would be very picky about whose blood.  
  
From behind the mask came another series of sounds like cracking laughter, and though the creature didn't make a move to attack or grab her as she passed, it did turn to watch her. And she realized with a sick kind of fear that it probably liked the idea of chasing its prey.  
  
"Tifa!"  
  
Lily. She couldn't see her, but the older woman's voice was close enough to mean that she'd come outside.  
  
Hellmasker turned its head quickly to look back toward the door. And then it gave another pleased hiss. Tifa slowed to a halt, feeling a tingle of dread in her gut. "Lily, go back into the apartment!"  
  
"It's okay! Got my gun! Shit, what is this thing?"  
  
She could see Lily now, her face a mix of horror and resolve as she aimed at the creature. For itself, Hellmasker was watching her as if gauging the threat.  
  
"Where's Vince?" Lily asked suddenly.  
  
Tifa didn't know how to answer. Should she try and explain now, tell Lily not to shoot because the thing in front of her was not all monster? Should she lie and say Vincent was upstairs, and then try to put her own plan back into motion? Indecision, indecision...  
  
And then Hellmasker seemed to seethe out a growling breath. "Blood," it crooned, gesturing at Lily with the chainsaw. "You have blood."  
  
"God. Fucking monsters." And Lily pulled the trigger, twice, before Tifa could give voice to a protest.  
  
She didn't know what she expected to happen. Would bullets even harm it? Maybe just make it angry. She couldn't remember...  
  
But as the shots impacted, Hellmasker stumbled back and then fell to the ground with a grunt. And she could only watch in horrified dismay as the creature shifted until it was Vincent on the ground. Vincent, wearing only one boot, dressed in that gray sweater, still conscious for a moment and raising a shaking hand to a place where a bloom of blood had started.  
  
And then he fell still. And Lily dropped the gun.  
  
***  
  
This chapter also gave me fits. Argh. Sorry it took a little longer to post than the others. Writing between training for my new job, and packing, and trying to figure out how we're going to move all of this stuff because everyone with a truck who said they'd help suddenly doesn't seem to know what their doing. Crazy!  
  
Plus, I hab a derrible, derrible cold. Bleh... But reviews make everything better! Thank you, thank you, thank you again everyone! 


	17. Slow Recovery

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Sixteen: Slow Recovery  
  
by thelittletree  
  
It was all strange and vaguely unreal, like the first minutes after Aeris had died. No, no, it hadn't happened. Eyes would open, and it would be all right. Just a dream, a trick, a joke.  
  
"God... Oh God, I shot him..."  
  
She wasn't sure how she got there, but Tifa found herself on her knees beside him, half afraid to touch him as if it might compound on the injuries. As if he might wake up and flinch away. His right hand, now a limp and ineffective compress, was resting on his left side, over his ribs where the first bullet had entered. The second shot appeared to have gone in over his right hip, she noticed, but the placement of blood told her the slug had probably gone right through. The first one was the one to worry about (maybe through a lung, or maybe it had broken a rib into sharp, puncturing pieces), though the second would have to be stanched soon.  
  
He couldn't die. It was why she'd accused him of being jealous of mortals, like herself. But he couldn't just be left untended.  
  
He had a pulse under his chin, and he was breathing. A slight, rattling sound as she lowered her ear to an inch from his mouth. Perforated lung, she thought to herself.  
  
Lily was staring at him, looking shaken and pale, and Tifa wondered if she'd have nightmares about this moment like Tifa had nightmares about Aeris' death, about seeing her father burning. And then Lily's gaze shifted to her, a sudden kind of glance. "Is...is he dead?"  
  
"No." Detached again from her mind; this was something she remembered how to deal with. "We should get him inside."  
  
Lily licked her lips, still trembling and looking like she was trying to sort out her disconnected thoughts. "We...we gotta call the hospital."  
  
But she was fairly sure that wouldn't be Vincent's first choice. Maybe they would label him a medical miracle, a man whose body healed itself of fatal wounds. Maybe they would test him, observe him, dissect him. For the enrichment of the human race, no doubt. "Let's get him inside first. Can you get his feet?"  
  
It was a moment before Lily nodded, and then she rushed forward and crouched down to put her hands under his ankles. But then, as Tifa worked to lift him, get her arms under his shoulders, Lily's mind obviously stumbled over the next obstacle to understanding. "What the hell was that?" Her voice was unsteady. "God, that was him. That thing..."  
  
Tifa guessed that she would have to explain. But not right now. Right now, action was needed. She met Lily's eyes, remembering something Zangan had said about eye contact and getting through to a distraught person. "We're going to lift him on three." She wondered suddenly if there was anyone coming to investigate the sound of gunshots. At least here, between houses, they were mostly out of sight. "One...two..." And she shifted her stance, ready for the weight. "Three."  
  
***  
  
"We're going to need some towels."  
  
"Towels. Right." Lily hurried off, out of the living room.  
  
She'd hardly ever had to do this part, Tifa realized suddenly. The full treatment of wounds without the aid of curative materia. So used to having those powerful little orbs during Avalanche, and the worst she'd had to deal with before that, after that had been a couple of sprains and some pulled muscles during training. When she had been training.  
  
And now she was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. She'd never treated Vincent. Someone untouchable, someone to keep a respectful physical distance from at all times. And, even unconscious, it was still Vincent. Draped a little haphazardly over the cushions of Lily's couch, half-braced against one of the arms, wearing only one boot, grass in his hair, she noticed. But with a remnant of a grimace of pain on his face, still stern looking. This was very different than helping him with his dishes, or with cleaning his apartment, she thought to herself, clenching and unclenching her fingers. But it had to be done.  
  
His skin under his shirt was warm, and she winced to herself in embarrassment as her hand instinctively flinched away from the contact. God, why she was being so stupid about this?  
  
Lily came hastily back into the room. "Towels," she said as she dropped them on the floor, "and I've got bandages and antiseptic and...whatever else we need. And I can get some water..." And then she seemed to notice something in Tifa's face. "What's wrong? Is he okay?"  
  
Tifa turned to her, trying to think of something rational and fortifying to say, but her bravado had faded. She took a breath. "Yes. We just need to take off his shirt..."  
  
And Lily made a quick sound like a grunt and stepped forward. "'Kay, out of the way."  
  
Tifa stood from the couch and Lily maneuvered herself into place. And then she slipped Vincent out of the bulky sweater, pulling it carefully over his head and rolling the sleeves briskly from his arms, as if she might've done it a hundred times before.  
  
Svelte, angular, sharply defined. Blood and pale skin and long narrow muscles. Tifa was surprised at how curious her eyes were.  
  
Lily glanced over the wounds, half prodding at the area around them, and even leaned down to sweep a hand behind his back, her fingers coming back stained with blood. "Both went clean through. Damn lucky," she murmured as if to herself. "But we're going to need some water to clean him up." She began to pack the injuries with towels, finding ways of keeping the compresses firmly pressed where they needed to be.  
  
And like that, they'd switched places. Lily back in her element, suddenly calm and in charge again. And Tifa felt infinitely more comfortable in this role. She could help, she could give orders when the situation called for it. But she'd never had to be the leader. Always the leader's second, the one behind the scenes, keeping things together.  
  
Except, of course, when Cloud had been in Mideel with severe mako poisoning. Then everything had come apart, and she hadn't been able to make herself leave the room. The leader's second, and always by his side, worrying and loving and hoping. The one in the lifestream with him, scared and confused and thrilled to be there beyond his barriers, even for a little while.  
  
The leader's second, even at the end. The leader's second choice. And she would've gone with him, even if he'd been going to find Aeris...  
  
She went to get some water.  
  
***  
  
Lily went through stages. It was like switching between two faces: one, confident and strong, the other worried and pale with guilt or maybe fear. Washing the wounds, changing the position of the towels until they were all nearly covered in blood. And this was after Tifa had explained. She'd had to, if only to keep Lily from calling an ambulance.  
  
Explained about the experiments (what little she knew about them), about the four transformations, about the way he healed. And Lily had only nodded under a permanent grimace, only met her eyes gravely, briefly as she spoke. Hard to tell what she was feeling. But she was still tending Vincent, still seemingly interested in making sure he recovered. Though Tifa wondered if things had now changed irreparably between landlady and tenant. One thing for certain, it would never be exactly the way it had been before.  
  
And then Lily went to have another bath, and she stayed behind that closed door for a long time, until it was growing dark outside. When she came back out, Tifa suggested that she have something to eat before heading to bed. But Lily seemed to have no appetite. She hovered around the living room, turned on some lights, alternately watched Vincent breathe and smoked cigarette after cigarette. And then, after some prodding from Tifa, she went into her bedroom and closed the door.  
  
Tifa dozed a couple of times, always waking to find herself half-sloped over Vincent. And then she would check the wounds under the bandages Lily had wound around him, taking care around the two that occasionally frothed with blood as he breathed, and then wait again. Around two in the morning Lily came out of her room to check on them, looking rumpled in her clothing as if she'd slept without bothering to get changed. And Tifa let her take over for a couple of hours as she went to sleep in the bed.  
  
When she woke around four, she came into the living room to find Lily asleep on the floor with her head against the couch, one hand placed only an inch or so from the fingers of Vincent's prosthetic as if she might've been holding his hand before she'd dropped off. A strangely exposed picture of the woman whose concern, though present, had always seemed so far buried under hardened skin. Gently, Tifa woke her and directed her back into her own room despite all protests before resuming the watch.  
  
Dawn was just starting to creep up the walls and spill over the window sills when Tifa was disturbed from a shallow slumber as Vincent stirred, his breathing raspy and laboured, as if he was suddenly feeling the pain of his wounds. She wasn't sure how to calm him, but after a few moments she decided that maybe if his subconscious realized he wasn't alone it would be enough. She moved to put her fingers against the back of his hand. And had to fight the strange compulsion to explore the smooth-looking recesses between his knuckles.  
  
He stiffened at first, and then seemed to relax a little. And then he spoke, his voice sluggish and gravelly. "Lily?"  
  
Tifa faltered for a second before answering, not sure if he was even really awake. "No." She drew her hand away and sat up from him a little. "It...it's Tifa."  
  
He took a few effortful breaths and turned his head as if to face her, though his eyes remained closed. "You okay?"  
  
She wasn't sure what to make of the question at first. Had he even heard her? She licked her lips. "She's okay. Lily's okay."  
  
He took another couple of breaths and she was surprised when he pried his eyes open a little to look at her. His pupils looked small and unfocused, almost lost in the red of his irises. His eyebrows twitched downward, almost a frown at the light. "Are you okay?" he asked again, this time a little more distinctly.  
  
And she realized he had been talking to her. She nodded quickly to reassure him. "Yes, I'm okay, too."  
  
He gave a slight nod and closed his eyes. And in a few moments his breathing had changed back into the slow, shallow breaths of sleep.  
  
And Tifa wondered to herself as she blinked and rubbed her face whether he would even remember the exchange later. Concerned for their welfare first, and he hadn't even asked what had happened, or how badly he was hurt. Though perhaps he hadn't been in his right mind.  
  
Still, it surprised her. Responsible for others, for human life. Not that she'd doubted her, but maybe Lily had been right about him.  
  
***  
  
It was coming around to eight o'clock when he woke again, a slow recovery from the enforced sleep of a body struggling to mend itself, and at first he seemed a little disoriented. And, not quite sure what to say, Tifa left him observe things for himself unless he felt the need to ask a question. As he began to investigate the bandages she stood from the couch to give him his space. He winced once, a little, as he moved his left arm. And Tifa picked up the cue.  
  
"How do you feel? Do you want some painkillers?"  
  
He didn't answer, but went about pushing himself into a sitting position, his breathing still no more than a heavy rasp. And then he put his legs over the side of the couch and proceeded, slowly, to stand.  
  
And Tifa felt justified in objecting. "You shouldn't be up yet. It'll only increase the bleeding."  
  
But Vincent was looking out one of the windows, managing to stand fairly straight despite the injuries. "It doesn't matter. I have to go."  
  
She wondered for a moment if it was possible that he was still a little confused. "Go where? We're in Lily's apartment. If you need something I can get it..."  
  
"Not this, you can't." And he turned to look at her.  
  
Something in his eyes: something candid and revealed and honest, and for a moment she recognized Lily's Vincent. The one that probably felt the need sometimes to explain himself because she was stubborn enough to demand an answer from him. "They're still hungry. And I have to let them feed, or it will just be a danger again."  
  
And, she knew what he was referring to. Though she'd never realized in Avalanche that his relationship with the creatures inside of him had been like this -- symbiotic, she thought. He'd used them to fight their way to Jenova. Now, he killed monsters for a living, likely making use of the transformations. And in turn this kept Hojo's curse from reaching its full, terrifying potential. A good exchange, if anything good could be said about the situation.  
  
And she nodded and stepped away from him.  
  
He took a breath and then glanced around the floor. When he spotted his shirt, he began to slowly lean down toward it, to pick it up. And, forgetting for a moment that he might not appreciate the help, she reached down to grab it for him. But he only gave a small nod as he took the sweater from her.  
  
It was covered in blood, of course. And Tifa chewed her lip for a moment. "I'll get you another one from upstairs," she offered. "And you left one boot in your living room. The other's over there, by the lamp." And, before he could object, she headed into the kitchen, grabbed up Lily's keys, and left the apartment.  
  
Easier to do this than thinking.  
  
In the end, she didn't need the keys. The door had been left open, ostensibly after she and Lily had rushed down the stairs. Quickly, she went into his closet and grabbed up a black button-up, and then located his boot. And, almost as an afterthought, she made a search until she found a bottle of painkillers in his bathroom.  
  
Vincent was just tightening a clean set of bandages around himself when she returned and he glanced up as she carefully tossed the shirt to him.  
  
"Here's your boot, and the painkillers." And she went to grab him a glass of water.  
  
It was all done very quickly, and then he was taking slow steps, still with a bit of a limp, toward the door. And, starting to feel as if she should really be trying to talk him out of this, Tifa followed.  
  
Expecting him just to leave without another word, it caught her off guard when he stopped at the door and hitched himself around to look at her. And here again was a Vincent who was sort of uncomfortable with her presence, with meeting her eyes. But this time she found that it didn't make her so uneasy in return. She could forgive him for it. It wasn't so hard to understand anymore.  
  
"Is Lily okay?" he asked, and she wondered if he really had forgotten what he'd said earlier, the first time he'd regained consciousness.  
  
"She's fine. A little shaken, I guess." She gave a small, nervous chuckle. Just discovered that the man she'd had living upstairs for three years had four creatures living inside of him. Probably a little shaken.  
  
"Is she...upset?"  
  
And Tifa thought she knew what he meant. Was she upset with what she'd seen? "I don't know," she answered truthfully. "I...I had to explain to her...about you, to keep her from calling the hospital. She didn't say anything or ask any questions. But she's been worried about you. She was the one who put the bandages on you."  
  
He gave a little acknowledging nod. And then he dropped his eyes. "Thank you. And tell her thank you." He paused a moment. "And, I'm sorry." He turned again and opened the door.  
  
And Tifa had the sudden impression that he didn't intend to come back. "Wait. Are you leaving for good?"  
  
He seemed to stiffen, and then he gave a quick glance over his shoulder before facing forward again. "Just tell her I'm sorry." And he was out the door.  
  
It wasn't her business. Not her responsibility. But...he was injured. And Lily...  
  
It wasn't hard to locate the chocobo stable in town. The first person she ran across as she left the apartment (after making sure Vincent was well out of sight and hearing range, she hoped) was able to direct her; an older man involved in the business of garbage disposal who obviously knew his way around Nibelheim. And she was glad that there was no one watching the stable too closely, though she promised herself as she mounted and guided the nervous creature out of town that she wouldn't be gone long.  
  
***  
  
Whoops! Does Vincent get his hitpoints back after a limit break? Heh...oh well. I guess it's been awhile since I've played the game.  
  
And, thank you, I am feeling much better today. Ah, the wonderful smell of resettling dust. *cough cough* Stupid packing.  
  
Thank you, too (again!), for reviews everyone! Wasn't sure how people would react to that last chapter. Always seem to have Vincent getting shot, beaten up, stabbed, generally mutilated in my fics. Poor guy :) Well, they do say writers are secretly masochistic... 


	18. Applying the Rules

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Seventeen: Applying the Rules  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Tifa admitted to herself after nearly an hour of riding in the sun, without water, muscles cramping, that she wasn't completely sure of what she was doing. She didn't know where Vincent would go (though she had picked Kalm as a vague destination); she didn't know if he'd taken a chocobo or had simply let loose with one of *them* somewhere out here in the grasslands; she didn't know what she would say to make him come back with her.  
  
A decision, she realized, without hesitation, without doubts. She'd simply decided to follow him. She was becoming positively hasty.  
  
Maybe it was a good thing...not to be around Cloud for awhile... Since pieces of the old Tifa were starting to float to the surface.  
  
Another hour passed without any sign of him, or any hint that he had been anywhere in the area. No carrying sounds of battle, no retreating wildlife. And she only got closer and closer to Kalm as she rode. Another hour and she was starting to believe she wasn't going to find him. Maybe he'd realized he was being followed; maybe he'd gone in a completely different direction.  
  
And she was surprised to realize how dejected these thoughts made her feel. Lily would miss him, she knew. Like missing a limb, whether or not she ever said so. And she might always look back, sometimes with regret, sometimes with anger, wishing she'd had the chance to talk to him after the revelation of his past, maybe even to apologize for the bullet wounds.  
  
That grief, Lily had said, when something ended suddenly. Never given the opportunity for closure, whether things ended well or badly. Lily deserved that from him at least, she thought.  
  
And she had to concede that she, too, would find it different there without Vincent. The past few days' avoidance had been a little like an uncomfortable waiting game; and then having him in Lily's apartment, forced into the position of guarding his sleep, waiting for him to wake and then hearing his voice again, having his eyes on her...  
  
It was Vincent. Still Vincent. Guns and monsters and brusque-communication Vincent.  
  
But it had been good to see him recover, a kind of relief, and not only for Lily's sake. Good to see him... Sitting on the couch, not particularly thinking about anything sometimes, but sometimes thinking about Mideel again -- watching over an injured, unresponsive body, it was impossible not to draw comparisons. And trying to keep her eyes from straying to the sharp cut of his shoulders, the clean shapes of his collarbones, the way his waist tapered off.  
  
Different than looking at Cloud, obviously. Cloud, who still had some of that boyish roundness to his limbs, slender orbs of muscle under his skin, downy yellow hair on his arms and legs, almost faded invisible after he'd been in the sun.  
  
Vincent, who was black to Cloud's blond, who was older, who wore his trials like a testament, though it could've just as easily have been his metabolism. So thin...  
  
But she'd still been tempted to keep looking. Not something she'd ever imagined she would have thought about him, if only because he'd always been so aloof. Vincent was good-looking. Red eyes, lean body, golden claw. But he was still good-looking, in a startling sort of way. Like looking at an abstract painting and suddenly realizing that you liked what you saw...  
  
Not that it really meant much. It was obvious how much he didn't want to have anything to do with anything that had the vaguest connection with love. And she couldn't yet think of herself as 'available'. But...  
  
She'd decided that there was nothing wrong with simply *thinking* that he looked good.  
  
A copse of trees on the horizon as she crested a shallow hill, maybe a half mile away. And she brought her mount to a halt, idly staring at the sketchy forest and sort of hoping to see something that would give Vincent away. But the trees were dark and quiet and still. And she sighed and ran a hand through her hair, bringing it back into control over one shoulder. She'd gone as far as she was going to. To go to Kalm would be at least another two or three hours, and then five or six hours to return since she had no intention of staying in her own bed in her own empty house. And nothing to guarantee that Vincent would even be there; if he was, nothing to guarantee that he would listen to her. Maybe it was better to think decisions through before simply jumping on the nearest chocobo and riding off like some spontaneous hero...  
  
Birds suddenly rising into the air from under the roof of leaves, like a cloud of black smoke puffing upward from a flash fire. And a blur of something, too far to see exactly what, tearing out from the shelter of the trees and into the open field. Obviously being pursued, if it was fleeing so foolishly into an unprotected area.  
  
And then the attacker. And she'd been looking too long not to recognize him. Galian Beast, much too fast for the chosen prey to stand much of a chance. In the daylight; a risky gamble. Anyone could see him, hear the snarls of a creature that knows it's about to be satisfied. But maybe that didn't matter as much as getting them fed...  
  
Overtaken, and almost too enthusiastic, the two shapes tumbled together and there was a yelp of fright or pain. And then the thing was dead, and Galian Beast was eagerly tearing into its meal. She had to turn away.  
  
It lasted less than a minute; she was almost surprised. And then it was Vincent again, staggering suddenly as if he'd been thrust unexpectedly back into his own body. Hardly the ramrod figure she'd come to know in Avalanche, obviously feeling his injuries now. With a breath, she clucked to her mount and started riding toward him.  
  
It wasn't long before he noticed her approaching. And though she half expected him to turn and starting walking away, maybe toward Kalm, he didn't. Perhaps out of simply knowing that she could easily catch up with him and it wasn't worth it to waste the energy.  
  
It was only a few minutes before she was urging the chocobo to a slow halt a couple of feet from him and looking down at him from her perch. He stood facing her casually, as if he was unwounded, as if they might've been strangers judging each other at first impression; he didn't ask her why she'd come or chide her for following. He just waited, maybe for her to offer an explanation.  
  
But she was fairly sure any explanation would be useless. It was about calling a bluff. And she would have to do it right, cross her fingers and hope to see the queen of hearts when she lifted her hand.  
  
"I'll bet it hasn't been hard to attract monsters, with those open wounds."  
  
She only realized as he glanced up at her that he hadn't been meeting her eyes, but staring at her mount. Surprised enough by her strange greeting, maybe, to look for clarification in her expression. But all of those games had helped her practice her poker face. Still Vincent, still stern, still an immovable brick wall. Still a little intimidated by him, she admitted to herself, even when she was up here and he was down there. But this was important...  
  
"Are you planning to walk the rest of the way to Kalm from here? Unarmed?" She'd seen him leave Lily's, watched him walk away, knew he hadn't had a gun on him when he'd gone out the door.  
  
Like an offer, she thought, like she might've followed him here with the intention of helping him to Kalm. But Vincent gave no answer; just watching, as if he instinctively realized that she'd come not to help him but to confront him. He was still no one to be fooled.  
  
At least, not easily. She'd managed it before around his table.  
  
"Or were you planning just to transform to fight whatever attacks you?"  
  
She'd seen him stumbling, injured and weary; he bluffed it well, but he'd already given it away. And she'd started recognizing the control and concentration it took to overpower *their* wild-card nature. This was the gamble: wondering at the truth about the creatures in him, assuming he hadn't ridden his own chocobo out here, guessing his risks. As he approached Kalm, and with no way to outrun enemies, would he transform to protect himself with so many innocents nearby?  
  
Hungry, Hellmasker had picked her out as prey. But it had hesitated at first with Lily, as if recognizing the threat she'd presented while armed. And maybe she could believe it was what had always protected them in Avalanche: the fact that they were not easy prey. Not as easy as the monsters they'd always defeated. Intelligent enough to know when not to attack...  
  
But there was blood in Kalm that they would probably not have to fight very hard for. Wild-cards, and loosed with slackened reigns in compromised hands. A massacre.  
  
She continued to stare him down, and she gained some tentative confidence when he still gave no rebuttal. She took a quiet breath and proceeded. "I'm heading back to Nibelheim right now, and if you want I can take you with me."  
  
No reaction. She might as well have said nothing.  
  
It needed something else, like a taunt to get him to reveal his hand. She gave a shrug. "Though, I suppose you could always knock me down and leave me here while you ride to Kalm." 'Responsible for human life now,' she reminded him silently. 'Lily said so. And she reads you like a book.' She suddenly felt like smirking. 'You probably don't even know how much you've given away.'  
  
A few seconds passed in silence. And Tifa began to wonder if she'd called bluff mistakenly. But then something shifted in Vincent's expression and he dropped his eyes. Like dropping his cards in front of him, she couldn't help but think. He sighed, and his stance changed so that she could see for a moment where he was favouring. She felt a momentary twinge of sympathy.  
  
"I can't go back to Nibelheim," he said suddenly, quietly so that Tifa thought a gust of wind would've blown the words away.  
  
And, like an echo, she remembered the texture of his door against her arms as she supported herself, feeling the fire in her ankle. 'Take me to Kalm.' "Well, choose your own risk, Vincent. Lily's probably awake now, and wondering where we both are. I was telling the truth when I said she was worried about you." And then she couldn't help a slightly foolish grin. "So, what is it? Walk, or be carried?"  
  
She couldn't completely justify the spurt of pleasure she felt as one of his eyebrows twitched suddenly upward. His own words of almost two weeks ago, turned around against him. It was a struggle not to chuckle out loud.  
  
And then he seemed to sigh, though his features seemed to harden. "It's too dangerous to go back. You should realize."  
  
Too dangerous before, too, she thought, but still he'd stayed. The only thing that had changed was the fact that Lily now knew *how* dangerous. But she wasn't asking him to go on like nothing had happened. It was just time to face a demon instead of running from it and never knowing. And if not for himself, then for Lily, whether or not he believed her about the older woman's concern. "Just come back, recover for one night, and go to Kalm tomorrow."  
  
Like drawing a web of logic closed. And Vincent's expression grew stormy enough for her to recognize his anger. The 'glare' in its full, raging glory, and it *was* intimidating. She had to turn away from him, feeling her cheeks beginning to flush with some shame for forcing her will on him. But she wasn't going to back down this time. Lily, she reminded herself. Lily, Lily, Lily...  
  
It felt like they stayed that way for hours. Both waiting for the other to back down until Tifa's leg muscles became sore enough for her to start fantasizing about slipping down onto the grass and walking around. Always a waiting game with him.  
  
And then she gave an involuntary shiver. It was getting colder. Her nose twinged and, before she could prevent it, she sneezed.  
  
Nothing for a moment. And then... "Bless you." It was almost a sigh.  
  
She glanced over at him in surprise. Saw that look of resignation on his face, like the day she'd one-up'd him about his dishes, as he made his slow way across the few feet between them, now clearly favouring his injuries. He didn't meet her eyes as he came up beside the chocobo and she belatedly remembered that physical unease, suddenly darting away from her as she'd come up beside him. As if she might've wanted to hurt him. And she almost felt like she should say something.  
  
But it looked like he was willing, for now, to face more than one demon. Without a word, as if she might still have been in the dark about his restless attraction, he put his hands in position. And, as she shifted herself forward, he pulled himself astride behind her with more grace than someone who had been shot twice only a day ago should have been able to. Careful not to touch her, though. But still an unequivocally warm presence at her back.  
  
Sharp shoulders; collarbones that might've been shaped, hollowed for curious fingers; tapered waist... She had to force her mind away as she clucked at their mount.  
  
And they were off. At first, she found herself half expecting an initial fight for the destination, but Vincent seemed willing to honour the, perhaps temporary, victory she'd gained over him. Maybe he thought she wouldn't give up. Not like trying to keep her from killing herself, this time. No justification, she thought, for being ruthless.  
  
And eventually she began to allow herself to relax her stiff shoulders, slowly, as they rode, though she was always ready to tense away again if she accidentally went too far and brushed against him. But it didn't happen, as if he might've been keeping tabs on their positioning as well. Gradually easing into a affectation that was almost comfortable. Though it never became comfortable enough for conversation.  
  
Three hours passed like thirty. By the end, Vincent's breathing had become a burdened rasp behind her ear and he was occasionally making quick sounds of discomfort. (After the first time she asked 'Are you all right?' without receiving an answer, she didn't ask again.)  
  
Outside of Nibelheim, minutes from the two-story where they had both been living, and his breathing became a gasp. Buckling for a moment against her shoulder, his knuckles bumping against her spine as he moved to clutch his ribs. A stuttered, wheezing groan. And then he spoke, his voice no more than a hoarse whisper.  
  
"I'm going to faint."  
  
And she only managed to pop off buttons as she tried to control the fall.  
  
***  
  
It's almost midnight. I'm moving tomorrow, so I'm not sure when I'm going to be getting the next chapter up. My phone line won't be hooked up until Wednesday, though I can always use the computers at my university to get on the internet, I suppose. Hmm...  
  
Distance: Your pain is now my pain. Moving sucks.  
  
Thanks to every people for reviews! So wonderful! Sad that I won't be able to check for them (at least not conveniently for a few days) beyond early tomorrow morning. :( But please write reviews anyway! *grin*  
  
Oh...and someone said the magic word? *ducks flutter down from the ceiling* (uh, Marx Bros. reference -- sorry) Fan art? Always welcome! Maybe even encouraged... :P 


	19. Reattached

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Eighteen: Reattached  
  
by thelittletree  
  
He was beginning to recognize the feel of her presence, though it may simply have been the growing ability to identify her particular scent, the characteristic sounds of her breathing, moving, slipping hair behind her ears. The last time he'd woken up it had been her. Lily's apartment, but her concerned expression, telltale smudges under her eyes that meant she'd been sitting over him instead of sleeping.  
  
And remembering his loss of control with a pang of shame and guilt, remembering as he'd fought against his own body, then in the hands of Hellmasker (a psychotic intelligence, a warped sense of logic -- the slipperiest of all four of them when it was hungry), Tifa against the wall, looking frightened but not running...  
  
And then moving as if to lead a blood-thirsty nose away from the door Lily had disappeared into. And him, fighting against the hunger, suddenly afraid that Hellmasker *would* follow. Saved from the water, only to make her a desperate sacrifice to an insatiable appetite. No, no. Not another death...  
  
And then Lily. And remembering how it had almost been a relief to feel those bullets, to feel Hellmasker fleeing from the pain. To know that he would not cause harm today.  
  
Tired. Almost tired enough not to want to open his eyes. Nibelheim again. Though this wasn't Lily's apartment, which always smelled faintly of warm food. His own apartment; his living room, he was fairly sure -- the air was that of an open chamber. Though he wasn't on the couch. The floor? Under a blanket, his head on a pillow. How long had he been out? Long enough for her to have somehow gotten him here...  
  
He listened, but didn't hear footsteps or the sound of another mouth breathing. She was alone. And he was already feeling sort of rested. As much as he hadn't wanted to concede the point, she had been right, out there in the rolling grasslands that he almost considered his own property sometimes. If he had been attacked too close to Kalm it could easily have turned into a dangerous situation. Too dangerous to risk it. Something he hadn't even considered when he'd left...  
  
So maybe it really had been the best course, to have returned here. He could still leave again before Lily realized he was back.  
  
And maybe this time Tifa would mind her own damn business and let him go unhindered.  
  
She was doing something. Small movements, the tiny click of two minor objects being brought together, apart, together.  
  
"Ow, shit." A whispered curse, a pause. Click, click.  
  
And he was curious despite himself. Time to 'wake up', he decided. He opened his eyes.  
  
She didn't notice at first, busy as she was hunched over something that looked suspiciously like one of his black shirts. Holding it carefully at one point between two fingers, eyes squinted in the low light coming in through the windows, her other hand curled around what he eventually identified as a threaded needle. Sewing...replacing a button, he recognized.  
  
After a couple of moments, she stopped her movements and lifted the material to inspect her work. Tugged gently on the button to make sure it was secure. And then she caught his eye. And stiffened. Suddenly uncomfortable under his scrutiny where she had been so casual a second ago.  
  
And he almost wished she hadn't noticed.  
  
Lucrecia, his mind remembered against his will. Some of her most beautiful moments had been those when she had believed herself to be unobserved.  
  
Tifa. Absorbed in the moment. Long hair, no longer tied back as she had done in Avalanche, unhindered strands slipping into her face. Bathed partially in the fragile evening light, partially in shadow. Recovering, becoming stronger, even to the point of questioning his motives and standing up to him on issues she didn't understand. Taking chances, being foolhardy and brave. Prepared to lead Hellmasker away; prepared to stay in the Northern Crater 'just a few minutes more' as Barret fumed and swore and tried to convince her that Cloud wasn't coming back.  
  
Frustrating, stubborn.  
  
And, as much as he didn't want to admit it, beautiful. Still thin, a legacy of her pain that would probably last for a few weeks yet. Still weak, though knowing the woman she had been, proud and independent, that would eventually change.  
  
Still a strange and unexplainable temptation.  
  
"Your shirt," Tifa said, gesturing it up a little as if to draw his attention, as if he might've been staring a moment too long. "Sorry, I ripped some of the buttons off when I tried to catch you. When you fainted."  
  
He didn't reply. After a second she dropped her eyes and, putting the sewing aside, turned away. And then presented him with a glass and some pills. "Here, take these."  
  
He glanced into her hand. Painkillers. Carefully, he pushed himself up onto an elbow, gauging the ache in his side and his hip as he moved, and reached for the pills and then the water. Slowly took a sip and swallowed, and then again. And then put the pills in his mouth and took another sip...  
  
And choked. Down the windpipe instead of the esophagus. And once he started coughing he couldn't stop. One lung punctured and irritated, trying to work to help him catch his breath, but only serving to compound on the problem. Eventually coughing up blood; he could taste it in his mouth, feel it on his lips. Gasping for air until his left side felt like it had been scored open with a hot knife, until he had tears in his eyes.  
  
And her hands on him, on his back and chest as if to hold him together. Patting and rubbing skin and bandage alike as if to calm down the rage in his lungs.  
  
"Breathe. Take a breath, Vincent."  
  
Not like he wasn't trying. But without any plan of his own at the moment, he did what he could to repress the urge to cough and took a large, shaky breath. And another. Burning, and wheezing, but he was breathing. Tifa's fingers pressing the glass gently toward him until he gave in and took a drink. The compulsion to cough began to fade. And Tifa quickly took her hands away, pulled back from where she'd been leaning over him.  
  
He tried not to consciously notice the brush of cold air as her hovering body heat dissipated.  
  
Blood on the rim of the glass. Wearily, he ran his hand over his mouth, smudging his palm with red, and wiped his eyes dry with the back of his wrist. No use wishing he'd been alone to suffer unobserved. At least Tifa had so far proven that she was not the type to be smotheringly concerned. Let him out the door this morning when Lily would've stood in his way no matter how he'd tried to explain...  
  
She was holding something in her hand and smiling a little, as if she was trying to be encouraging. "Want to try this again?"  
  
More painkillers. He shook his head. "Later."  
  
"Okay." She picked up his shirt again and made herself comfortable beside him, ostensibly to continue reattaching the buttons. And, as he carefully lay himself down again beneath the blanket, she spoke without looking at him, as if offering an apology. "Lily knows you're here. She helped me bring you up the stairs."  
  
He couldn't help a sigh. Well, maybe it had been inevitable.  
  
"She's downstairs making you something to eat."  
  
The simplest thing for her. 'When you don't know what to say, bring food.' But she was bound to say something. He suddenly wanted to be miles and miles away. She would ask questions, she would be afraid. She would draw away, like Avalanche had drawn away once they'd known. He wasn't human. He wasn't like her. He smoked, he drank sometimes, he played poker. But he was nothing like her. He would live up here, she would live down there. She would never come to his door again, never leave the vacuum in his living room, never warn him about the chill night air.  
  
He didn't want to be here to experience it. The next chance he got, he would go to Kalm. It made more sense to be there, anyway. He'd only really stayed in Nibelheim because of Lily.  
  
He'd never expected this to happen. He'd been so careful. Until Tifa had arrived, and then everything had been turned on its head. Dammit. Shouldn't have brought her home that night. Everything had been just the way he'd wanted it...  
  
The sound of her coming up the stairs. After a few seconds, Tifa obviously heard the footsteps, too, and got up to open the door. And Vincent had to force himself not to watch her walk away. Maybe she didn't have the same muscles or skills right now, but he'd already noticed many times that she still had the grace of a fighter. A perfect opportunity from this position to watch the gentle sway of her body, if he'd let himself.  
  
Lily glanced at him as she entered, met his eyes for a moment, and then turned away to head into the kitchen. Firm jaw, resolved steps. She wasn't happy, he realized. But maybe she would just put the food down and leave.  
  
Too much to hope for. She was approaching with a roll of clean bandages in her hands. And he knew it would be simpler and quicker if he just gave in. With an inward sigh, he pushed himself up again, into a sitting position, and pushed the blanket away.  
  
Lily knelt beside him without a word, smelling faintly of banana bread. And without looking up into his face, she began to unwrap the bloody, gauzy strips from around his torso, not making any effort to be gentle. But he made no complaint to her. This silence wasn't going to last, and he knew anything he said would only serve to speed its end. Her temper only needed a small spark to come into full, blazing maturity. And she had every right to be angry. Betrayed. He'd never told her the danger she'd been in every day he'd lived in her house.  
  
It didn't take her long to reveal the wounds, and then she was fairly glaring at the bloody bullet punctures, the bruising. "Tifa, get me a wet cloth and the antiseptic from downstairs, would you?" Short, clipped words.  
  
It was a moment before Tifa went to do as Lily asked. And Vincent had the impression she wasn't sure what to expect from this encounter, half-tempted to stay just in case everything blew apart suddenly. As if there was something she might be able to do. After all, it had sort of been her doing.  
  
But right now, Lily was not someone to contradict, and Tifa seemed to realize it. And so she headed out the door.  
  
Once they were alone, Lily huffed out a breath and leaned away from him. Didn't meet his eyes, didn't say anything. And he felt it like a small death inside of him.  
  
What did you say to a monster, after all?  
  
You didn't say anything. You just fired a gun. He took a silent breath. Better just to address it head-on and get it over with, and then he could leave for Kalm.  
  
"Lily..." He fumbled suddenly for the words and frowned. What did a monster say to a human? Especially to a human who'd been bold and foolish enough to trust it. "I put you in danger without letting you know..."  
  
She glanced up and he could see her anger, and something else, in her hard expression. "Shit, what did I say when you first came to live here?"  
  
It was an unexpected reply to his attempted apology. He'd been half-expecting her volatile agreement. And then he blinked for a moment, trying to recall. Shook his head. She'd said a number of things, he couldn't remember what one in particular she was referring to.  
  
"Everyone has secrets. I never asked you to tell me yours. I knew from the first that you might be dangerous. Dressed in all that get-up, with that gun. But I still didn't ask. Decided to take that risk, and knew I could protect myself if I had to." She glanced away suddenly and ran a thumb over her chin. "I'm not pissed about that, Vince. Just pissed at the way it turned out, and that you just took off this morning."  
  
Met his eyes again, and he was abruptly made aware of the lines on her face, early signs of stress and hardship from years of loss and worry. Not even that old, but it was hard sometimes to think of her as his chronological younger. So much older than her years...  
  
"I can't blame you for not telling me. Not something I guess someone would just come out with. But..." She frowned suddenly. "Goddamn it, you just...fucking left."  
  
But this he could justify. "I didn't have a choice, Lily. They needed to feed or else..."  
  
"Oh, don't give me that," she interrupted him briskly. "I knew damn well when I woke up to an empty couch that you didn't plan on coming back."  
  
He couldn't deny it. If not for Tifa's interference, they wouldn't be having this conversation right now.  
  
"You...goddamn run from everything. Thought you knew me better, Vince. You know I've seen my share of weird shit, and I never made conditions for my friendship. Thought you knew you could trust me."  
  
Maybe he should've known better, he realized; not exactly an ordinary secret, though. Old reflexes died hard, he supposed. Turks didn't trust even the trustworthy. First instinct was for survival and self-preservation; and, if need be, to hell with everyone else's feelings on the subject.  
  
He didn't notice right away when she raised a hand and was startled into a flash of anger when she slapped him. Not hard, just a quick cuff on the cheek, just enough to sting for a few seconds; he could count on one hand the number of times she'd touched him before. Always respected his privacy about some things, always given him his own physical space. Never gone quite so far, even when her temper had been at its worst.  
  
But she always had an explanation for crossing the line. "That's for being a selfish, careless bastard," she told him abruptly. "Letting me shoot you, making me think I'd damn well killed you. Up and leaving without an explanation, full of goddamn bullet holes..."  
  
And then she kissed him.  
  
It was done very quickly, very simply, like an equal token for the rap on his cheek. Swift to anger, equally swift to forgive. A rough brush of her lips against the side of his mouth, the brief impression of toughened fingers against the side of his face as if to erase the ephemeral smart of her previous touch. And then she drew away again. "And that's because I love y'," she told him in a hoarse sounding whisper. "Now don't fucking let it go to your head."  
  
Tifa on the stairs. Lily turned to look at the door. And then she glanced back at him. One corner of her mouth twitching into a familiar smirk, and for a moment it was hard to believe she'd been angry at all. "You still keep alcohol in your cupboards? Because this might sting a little."  
  
***  
  
Yay, all moved in! Still unpacking, and we still have to buy groceries and all that fun stuff, but at least my computer is up and running...in its own computer room. Big window, lots of natural light, place to put my coffee. Ahh...perfect.  
  
Yes, this chapter is sort of short. Sorry. I was going to make it longer, but I decided to save the next part for another chapter. Yup. I won't have the internet at home until Tuesday, so updates'll correlate with when I can get to the university. Hopefully. Now *rubs her hands together* to go and check some reviews! Thanks, everyone, for reading and giving me feedback!  
  
Heh...this fic is one of the only things that stayed steady through all of the recent craziness. *pats fic on the head and goes off to catch a bus* 


	20. The Way We Were

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Nineteen: The Way We Were  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Tifa was fairly sure within two bites that Lily made the best banana bread on the continent. Not too dry or crumbly, not too moist; and warm with butter on it...this was a reason to live all by itself.  
  
Vincent seemed to agree. Polished off three pieces from the plate in minutes, and when Tifa got up to get herself a glass of water he lifted the empty plate in wordless supplication, still chewing the last morsel in his mouth.  
  
A little hungry, Tifa guessed, and took the plate from him.  
  
"Thank you," he murmured and shifted his weight onto his elbow before straightening his cards.  
  
Lily made it look so easy. Told him to stay put, not to get up, to let people who *could* do things for him. Threatened to shoot him again if he so much as stepped on a noisy floorboard, because she would be listening. And he was so far obeying, and with not so much as one grudging look.  
  
Though she supposed she would be happy to do just about anything, too, for a woman who could bake banana bread this perfectly.  
  
She'd come back into the apartment, only an hour or so ago now, cloth and antiseptic in hand, expecting to see things as they had been before: Vincent on the floor and not looking at anything in particular, Lily beside him and bristling with barely concealed anger. But that had not been the case. Lily smirking, Vincent expressionless as always, but no longer sitting so stiffly; the undeniable impression that the world had been remade while she'd been away. And then, while Tifa had looked on in surprise, Lily had simply and carefully cured Vincent's wounds, wrapped him up again, and gone back downstairs without a word to get some gil and her cards. No explanation.  
  
And Tifa hadn't ask for one. They'd just played poker on the floor, a sudden return to that fairly easy atmosphere she'd almost come to covet, and she'd been loathe to break it for any reason.  
  
But now Lily had gone to do some laundry. Vincent seemed content, though, to keep playing. Back in rare form, she'd only won a couple of hands against him. And at times she was sure she'd seen his lips twitch with the hint of a smile as he'd soundly thrashed her again and again, taking more and more of Lily's gil in lieu of her first cheque from Mr. Fallowfield.  
  
Enjoying himself at least, she thought with a smile as she carefully cut up the rest of the loaf and generously buttered each slice. He almost seemed to have forgotten his injuries. She poured herself some water and then made her way back over to her spot on the floor. And once she'd set the cup and plate down beside them she stretched out on her stomach and picked up her hand again.  
  
First things first, she couldn't help thinking as Vincent reached for another slice of bread. And then he pushed four gil into the growing pile with the back of his metal hand, making sure to keep his cards concealed, before taking a bite.  
  
Bluffing or not bluffing? He was making it very difficult to tell, somehow. She frowned a little to herself and glanced over her three jacks. Not a great hand, but it would still beat a bluff. She'd backed out last time, but for this hand she was in. She met his four and raised him four more.  
  
Vincent met her eight without a pause. And Tifa knew if she lost this one she would either have to quit or starting writing him I.O.U's. Decisively, she called and took a breath. "Okay, show me what you have."  
  
This time she was sure she saw a smirk as he lowered his cards. Three nines and two fives. Not high cards, but a full house beat just about everything. With a scoff she dropped her hand and pushed herself into a sitting position. "Okay, that's it. I'm out. Here, take it all." She pushed the pile toward him and almost wanted to knock some of it away as he unapologetically scooped the gil out of the pot. "I can see why Lily gets so worked up now, losing to you."  
  
He merely raised an eyebrow as he began to collect the cards together. "If you can't stand the heat..."  
  
She'd heard him say that a couple of times to Lily, but it sounded different directed at her, and she couldn't help a rueful smile. Most of the times they'd played before this, he'd almost gone on as if she wasn't there, except for the occasional glance in her direction. Now, she felt sort of involved. Like that first tentative conversation on his couch. A kind of acceptance, and she found she was sort of hungry for it. It felt good to have earned *something* from him, a man who seemed sort of inclined to ignore most everyone around him.  
  
He was shuffling quickly, something she'd watched him do numbers of times now, but still with some fascination at the way he used his metal fingers, as deftly as if they were flesh ones. And she pursed her lips, trying to think of something to say. Communication still did not come easily, and she admitted to herself that she still wasn't really sure if Vincent liked having to talk at all. But she'd been told to do what she wanted. She cleared her throat a little. "So, are you heading back to Kalm later?"  
  
He glanced up at her without ceasing the movements of his hands. And then dropped his eyes. "No."  
  
She'd hoped as much. But as Vincent continued to shuffle with his gaze focused downward, she began to feel badly about how she'd phrased the question. As if she might've been trying to get him to confess that she'd been right. And that wasn't what she'd intended. She frowned to herself for a moment, and then ploughed ahead through her hesitation. "Sorry if that sounded like an 'I told you so'. I didn't mean it like that."  
  
He glanced up again and after a second twitched his shoulders in a partial shrug. Lowered his eyes and continued shuffling. And then surprised her with a small sigh, as if he was about to speak.  
  
"Thank you. For convincing me to return."  
  
Quiet, but genuine, she thought. As much as maybe he didn't want to be saying it. And then he put the cards down on the carpet and carefully rolled onto his back.  
  
Tifa took a sip of her water and watched him for a moment. "Are things okay now, between you and Lily?"  
  
It was a moment before he gave a slight nod, almost as if to himself. A long silence followed. Eventually, Tifa put her cup down and reached for the cards. Shuffled them once, loosely, and then began laying out a game of solitaire. Glanced once in a while at Vincent. And after a few minutes she ventured a question.  
  
"Are you all right? Do you need anything?"  
  
He shook his head a little. And then gave another sigh. "I think I'm going to go into my room."  
  
Tifa nodded and almost got to her feet. But then thought better of it and simply asked, "Do you want some help?"  
  
He shook his head again and slowly began to pull himself upright, brushing the blanket aside. On one knee with a hand on the arm of the couch, he glanced at her again. "Just don't tell Lily I was doing this myself."  
  
Tifa smiled and crossed her heart. "Our secret."  
  
He nodded and gave a small grunt as he stood. And then made his way into his room and closed the door.  
  
And, not feeling any real need to be anywhere else, Tifa stayed in his living room and continued to play solitaire.  
  
***  
  
Okay, a *very* short chapter. Sorry. I could've made it longer, tacked on the next chapter, I suppose, to the end of this one. But I didn't. So, it'll have to wait for the next update. Yup.  
  
Yes, I walked to the university today to update. Even though I work in a couple of hours and am still elbow-deep in unpacking and washing dusty dishes. Crazy me. Just can't stay away, I guess. Heh...  
  
*gets up on her tiptoes* Well, I can see the end from here. A few more chapters, and this time I *promise* to write an epilogue. Already have it planned out in my head. Thanks for reviews! You're all so amazing and encouraging! Will I be able to stay away from Fanfiction.net after this? Who knows. I've become addicted. Gads, my AN's are getting to be almost as long as my chapters! 


	21. Midnight Cravings

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Twenty: Midnight Cravings  
  
by thelittletree  
  
Lily came back into the kitchen and ran a hand through her hair with a sigh. "Sleeping like a log," she reported, looking faintly relieved. "His breathing doesn't sound all that great, but at least he's taking it easy. I guess he can eat later." She lowered herself into a chair and reached for her cigarettes. Pulled one into her mouth and lit it with her usual thoughtless ease. "God, but you know..." She trailed off for a moment and took a drag, blew the smoke away from the table. "What I want to know is how the hell he kept that from me all this time."  
  
Tifa shuffled the cards in her hands. It probably hadn't been all that difficult, she expected, with a routine of feeding them regularly. But what would he do, she wondered suddenly, when the population of monsters in this area inevitably decreased to the point where hunting was no longer so easy? Move? Take in more territory? Have himself locked away? She wondered if this thought for the future ever bothered him. A scary thing, she recognized, to have to be responsible for the appetites of those creatures. What would he do when there were finally no monsters left, if that day ever came?  
  
He did have reasons, she mused, for wanting to die. If only to keep others from dying. She couldn't help a small wince at the idea. Monsters had it lucky, she found herself thinking. They didn't feel accountable for the lives they took for food.  
  
"Tifa?"  
  
She glanced up. "Hm?"  
  
Lily was smiling faintly. "A million miles away. I asked if you're hungry."  
  
"Oh. Maybe a little. I ate a few pieces of your banana bread."  
  
"Well, there's spaghetti in that pan on the stove, and some grated cheese in the fridge. Got some cucumber cut up into slices, too." She looked toward the window with another sigh and brought a thumb up to her mouth. Stayed that way for a few seconds, restlessly running her nail over her bottom lip. And then took a breath and turned back, meeting Tifa's eyes.  
  
Tifa couldn't say she was surprised. Even Lily had her curiousity.  
  
"I'm never going to ask him," she confessed. "It'd make him uncomfortable, I know. But..." She gave an impatient kind of shrug and stretched out a hand to her tray, knocking the soft gray ash from her cigarette. "I still want to know some things. God, the man..." She paused a moment, shaking her head, and didn't finish her thought. "He had those...things in Avalanche?"  
  
Tifa only hesitated for a second before nodding. Lily knew most of it already, no harm she could see in answering her questions.  
  
"Did he try and keep all of you from knowing?"  
  
She frowned a little, trying to remember. "I don't think so." And she wondered something. "He might've been just as surprised by them as we were. We...we found him in a coffin, where he said he'd been sleeping for something like thirty years."  
  
Tifa noticed Lily stiffen peripherally. "Thirty years? Shit." She brought the cigarette to her mouth and took another pull. "But, how's that work? He doesn't look thirty now."  
  
"Maybe he was in stasis. Or..." She chewed the inside of her lip for a moment before plunging ahead. "Or that man I mentioned before, Hojo, might have done something to him. I don't know. That I suppose you *would* have to ask him about."  
  
Lily looked at her for a moment, as if she thought there might be more to the answer, before giving another shrug. "Well, doesn't matter in the end, I guess. He's still Vince, same as he was before. It doesn't change anything."  
  
But it had changed everything for them, in Avalanche, she thought with a pang of shame. She doubted any of them had quite looked at him the same after that first terrifying transformation. Certainly they had all acted differently.  
  
Though Vincent hadn't seemed to notice. Had gone on as if it hadn't bothered him. Maybe it really hadn't bothered him, she mused. Maybe he hadn't cared what they'd thought. But still...  
  
Inhuman. He must've felt it in their unspoken rejection. Maybe it had been a relief to come to Nibelheim, to finally be accepted into someone's home, to be treated as a normal human being. He'd always been more than a shadow. And, though Lily had not been the first to see him out of that coffin, she had probably been the first to really *see* him.  
  
Lily took a sudden breath, like coming out of a thought, and took one more drag on her cigarette before stubbing it out. And then she stood. "Well, I'm going to bed. Didn't get much sleep last night. If you don't want any of that spaghetti I'm going to put it in the fridge."  
  
"Okay." Maybe she would try to get some sleep, too. Out of the three of them, Vincent had been the only one who'd gotten any decent rest.  
  
"G'night, Tifa." And it surprised her when Lily touched her hand across the table. Looked at her from under her feathery bangs, sincere green eyes and a mouth touched with a wry kind of smile. "Part of me wants to tell you it was stupid and dangerous of you to go out after him. But I'm just going to say thank you. Brought him home when he was too much a fool to do it himself. Thank you, too, from him, whether he ever says it. I already know he's got nowhere else to go." Squeezed her fingers gently. "Sweet dreams."   
  
But, overtired, Tifa slumbered restlessly. Woke every couple of hours until the early morning, and then had a dream about Cloud. And quietly slipped out from under the blanket and went into the kitchen for a drink of water. Sat at the table, idly thumbing the deck of cards, and trying not to think about what she'd dreamed.  
  
An impossible thing to ask herself to do. Cloud. Cloud, in Mr. Fallowfield's store, and she was looking for a particular healing herb. Going over shelf after disordered shelf, getting more and more upset as he shouted at her, followed her around, made it hard for her to concentrate.  
  
The dream had ended strangely, however. Mr. Fallowfield, but it was Vincent, and he was holding her shoes. Not a pill bottle, but in the dream it was what she'd been looking for. And he'd spoken. Two words.  
  
"Walk away."  
  
And she'd woken up.  
  
It was getting harder and harder to think of this place as temporary, she thought as she picked at a rough corner of the ace of spades with a nail. She didn't want to go back to Kalm, the town of nightmares, though she knew she would have to eventually. She had accounts to settle. Though she had a job here, a place to live; here she didn't have to be alone.  
  
Interesting, how they had changed places. Once, she wouldn't have come back to Nibelheim for anything...  
  
Interesting, that Vincent had ended up back in this town, too, despite all that had happened here. What strange homeopathy did this place hold over its victims?  
  
He'd carried her here the night she'd almost drowned, on a chocobo and then in his arms. And then she had brought him back on a chocobo, and she and Lily had carried him up the stairs. Lily, still wiping at tears she hadn't made excuses for. Angry, grieving tears, Tifa had thought.  
  
And then sewing his shirt up again with navy thread. It would never look exactly the same as it had before. But she'd tried to make the buttons secure so that they would not break away so easily next time. Some things were weaker after having been broken once; but this, she'd decided, needle in and needle out, was one thing that would not be.  
  
She came out of her reverie at the creak of a floorboard overhead. And felt her lips twitch in a little amusement despite herself. Lily would skewer him if she knew, out of bed and walking around. But maybe he was bored, looking for something to do. He'd slept all evening; maybe it was all his body had needed. She thumbed the cards again.  
  
And then gathered them into her hand with the keys and some initial collateral. Hesitation be damned. She didn't want to be alone to think again. And Lily could skewer her, too, while she was at it.  
  
***  
  
She went to sit at the table, but Vincent gestured her back into the living room with the hand that was not busy carrying the plate of banana bread.  
  
"On the couch."  
  
She obediently stepped over and sat on one of the cushions. When Vincent began to lower himself carefully to the floor, however, she stood back up, feeling the need to object. "Why aren't you sitting here?"  
  
He glanced up at her as he stretched himself out, propped on the metal joint of his left elbow. "It's more comfortable this way," he stated simply and put out a hand toward her. For the cards, she thought.  
  
But it couldn't really be more comfortable on the floor, could it? "Why don't you lie on the couch instead?"  
  
"It's not long enough." He twitched his fingers, beckoning for the deck.  
  
And she sighed. Stubborn, stubborn. Well, fine, it was easy enough to make a compromise. There was a blanket on the sofa. Quickly, she tucked it around herself and sat down on the floor.  
  
He didn't say anything about her choice. He just shuffled and went to deal.  
  
But Tifa stopped him after a moment, suddenly thinking of a way she might be able to win back some of her cheque, at least so that she wouldn't have to play solely with I.O.U's. "Do you know seven-card-stud?"  
  
He raised an unmistakably skeptical eyebrow. "You want to play with seven cards?"  
  
And she couldn't help but scoff at his tone. Yes, it was a little more complicated, but she wasn't a child, and she was intelligent. It was the first game Barret had taught her, the one she'd gotten very, very good at once upon a time. "He who underestimates his opponent leaves himself open for defeat," she quoted automatically, feeling justifiably offended; one of Zangan's favourite sayings.  
  
For a moment he seemed surprised, as if he hadn't expected her anger. And then he gave a small shrug, maybe his version of a wordless apology (though it hardly seemed remorseful), and began to deal the cards deftly into two piles on the floor.  
  
There. But something was missing. Not a big thing, she thought, but it had always been a part of their games. "Do you have anything to drink, Vincent?" And then, remembering his whiskey, amended, "Anything that's not forty percent alcohol?"  
  
He kept beer in his fridge. Four bottles that might've been sitting unopened for weeks. She brought two over and ignored Vincent's initial move to take the bottles from her. Took an edge of the nightie she was wearing and twisted the caps off. She hadn't been a bartender all those years for nothing.  
  
And as Vincent set the first bet at two gil, she reached into the folds of the blanket and pulled out her collateral: two cigarettes.  
  
One of Vincent's eyebrows twitched upward as she set them in the pot.  
  
And though he didn't say anything, she still felt the need to explain. "I don't have any coins left, so I was going to make this my first bet. If you don't like it, I guess I could just say that I owe you..."  
  
"No, it's fine."  
  
Brusque, and quickly lowering his eyes to his cards. And Tifa had to suppress another smile. Addicted or not, he was definitely still caught by the habit.  
  
She was almost a little surprised when she won the first hand. It had been a few years, after all. And then when she won second. By the third, however, Vincent was getting back into his stride. And they paused the game a moment while he slipped one of the cigarettes between his lips and made a futile search around for something to light it with.  
  
Tifa glanced around, too, as if she might find some matches lying on the floor. "Where's that lighter?" she wondered aloud.  
  
And after a moment, Vincent muttered, "Kitchen," around his cigarette.  
  
She found it on top of his fridge. He nodded as she handed it to him, lifted the flame up. And, just shy of the tobacco-filled paper, his eyes flicked up to meet hers, and she thought he looked uncertain for a moment. "You're going to let me smoke this?" The small oval of fire flickered under his breath.  
  
And she was a caught off-guard by the question. She wasn't his mother, and she wasn't Lily. They were his lungs. Though... "If you start coughing again, I suppose I might try to talk you into saving them for later, but otherwise..." She shrugged and trailed off. "It's a filthy habit, it's bad for you..." (So she'd told Cid a number of times) "...but everyone has their reasons for doing things."  
  
Everyone had their reasons. Even Aeris, she'd sometimes tried to convince Cloud in his darker moments, back when she'd still hoped he would listen. Not his fault; she'd made her own choice, had her own reasons. Maybe she'd even known.  
  
Vincent's lips twitched slightly, like a small thoughtful frown, as he looked back at the lighter. Lit the end and took a drag. And his face seemed to ease for a moment out of its perpetually grim expression. A relieved kind of pleasure, she thought, with the surge of nicotine. And without looking so implacably stern, she realized that he *was* good-looking. Would be more good-looking all the time if he could just relax a little more often.  
  
He exhaled the smoke in a sudden cough that caught him by surprise, only half-muffled with the back of his hand. And he glanced at her quickly as if he thought she might reach out pluck the cigarette out of his mouth. Though, of course, she wasn't going to. And after a moment he turned his attention to the cards she'd dealt him.  
  
"I had my reasons for leaving this morning." He frowned a little, paused in arranging his hand. "Yesterday morning," he corrected himself, and she realized he was right, since it was past midnight. He looked up at her again, met her eyes with a direct kind of gaze that almost seemed a little accusing. "Yet you were able to justify coming after me."  
  
Yes, she had been, she admitted. But sometimes people did selfless things for selfish reasons. And she hadn't wanted him to leave, for Lily's sake. For her own sake. Different circumstances altogether. And it wasn't like she was the first person in the world who had ever done something like it. "Well, you saw fit to rescue me from the water," she observed quietly. "And I had my reasons for jumping from the bridge."  
  
It was a few moments before he spoke again, idly straightening his cards as if he was trying to buy some time to think of a suitable reply. And then he blinked and gave a sigh, like granting his reluctant consent. "Touché." He took another draw on the cigarette, breathed the smoke out to his left. Quirked an eyebrow. "And I suppose it isn't as if they might kill me someday."  
  
True enough, she thought with a grin that turned quickly, almost without her permission, into a soft chuckle. It wasn't exactly something she should be laughing about, though, she thought. Beer on an empty stomach was never a good idea. The nightmares of Nibelheim would never be memories to look back on and laugh about. But when she saw the corners of Vincent's mouth twitching into a wan smile around the cigarette, she stopped trying to suppress her amusement. Oh, the dear irony of it. What price he paid to be above it all.  
  
What price the world had paid, might still pay, for the sake of scientific advancement.  
  
She was really starting to lose half way into her second bottle of beer. As they finished the seventh or eighth hand, she wasn't quite sure where they were at, she gathered up the cards to shuffle since they'd been taking turns. Suddenly remembered a way Barret had taught her.  
  
'Like this, Tif. Hands out in front, thumbs here. No, here. Now just let go.'  
  
But things never seemed to work exactly as you remembered, especially when you'd been drinking. Fifty-two cards, old and folded and faded, flipped out of her fingers, most of them just falling into her lap. And she gave an unauthorized snort of laughter at her own foolishness and glanced automatically at her audience.  
  
Vincent, now down nearly to the stub of his second cigarette, raised a slow eyebrow, his eyes flickering around at the cards on the floor. "Do you want me to shuffle?" he asked, sounding a trifle wan.  
  
The question made her want to laugh again, but she took a breath to calm herself. Yes, a little drunk, and maybe it was time to go back to bed. "That's okay. I think I'm done." And she began to pick up her mess, leaning out of the warm shelter of the blanket for the cards that had actually gotten a bit of range.  
  
One of them there, behind Vincent. "Sorry," she muttered as she kneeled into the designated 'pot' and reached over him. Hadn't given him the time to move, so he rolled onto his back, out of her way she thought. This would only take a second anyway.  
  
But she was overbalanced, and she realized too late that she should have known it. Caught herself at the last second in a bridge over him and managed with a grimace to pinch the card between her fingers. And then drew back into the smell of laundry detergent and shampoo. Glanced up in some surprise at finding herself so close to him, nearly cheek to cheek for a moment. How had this happened? Suddenly looking into his hard, wary eyes and realizing there *were* brown flecks in his irises.  
  
His pupils were tracing the lines of her face with a kind of anxious swiftness, as if he might've been trying to locate the trigger to disarm a bomb. Noticing again and again in the few long seconds it took to swallow the uncomfortable lump in her throat how his gaze swept down to her mouth, only to jump away again.  
  
That uneasy, fearful attraction she had almost managed to forget about. Things had been comfortable; old comrades, some beer, a few rounds of poker. And now she'd made them *un*comfortable again, though she couldn't quite recall how she'd gotten them into this position. An accident, she felt sure. Her mind felt slow and busy at the sudden intimate proximity, with the memory of a kiss in a dream, the memory of the real thing; two polar opposites.  
  
His lips were slightly parted. And she felt hot. Someone had to say something, do something. Or, God help her, she was going to...  
  
She wanted to...  
  
Not Cloud, but there was something in there, jumbled up with the rest, that *wanted* it to be Vincent. Push the hair behind his ear, test the hard-wire muscles with her fingers, slip her hand under his shirt and not pull away from the unfamiliar, inviting warmth of his skin.  
  
Oh God, everything else be damned, all for one moment of fiery curiousity.  
  
And it wasn't like the first kiss in his kitchen, thin-lipped surprise and the cold rush of air between them. His mouth moved to take hers and he went rigid suddenly under her, made a small noise in the back of his throat like a fleeting moan of loss or gain. Cigarettes and beer and the heady taste of someone who was not Cloud. Not sober with the shock of it, but aware enough now to remember how alcohol could make you burn. And it had been such a long time since she'd been in someone's arms...  
  
Darted his mouth away, a glimpse of his face contorting with something like pain. A moment of his gasping, raspy breath against her chin. And then they were kissing again, though she couldn't be sure the second one wasn't accidental, an unintentional brush of lips that just deepened before she could think about it. She knew it was wrong, knew they shouldn't be, knew some part of her would regret it; knew he would regret it. But she didn't want to stop. One touch of his hand on her side, her hip, and she would melt into that hard body she could break against.  
  
And then it was over. He turned his face away, breathing unsteadily in the near-silence, his eyes closed tightly. And she wanted to follow, wanted to track that warmth. Knowing she should pull back, but hesitating. Almost leaning forward.  
  
"Don't." A sharp command out of his mouth and it startled her. She felt torn, mind and body, her flesh awake and churning and craving more. Just once more...  
  
"Don't!"  
  
And she hauled herself away almost involuntarily at the volume of his voice, landing hard on her backside on the floor. But the pain was nothing to the belated wash of guilt and shame, seeing him lying there, his breath almost rattling with his lung injury, brought by her right to the edge of temptation. And, too, for having been so quick to forget. To have almost betrayed Cloud.  
  
She was weak. Maybe Vincent had known. Why he'd wanted her to leave before. More pain, and hadn't they been through enough?  
  
In the wrong, and she knew it. This would blow it wide open. They'd never be able to look each other in the eye again. But, at least she could apologize...  
  
"Vincent, I'm sorry. I don't know... I just..."  
  
Slowly, he turned his head to face her, his eyes open and he looked weary. So weary. It surprised her, but maybe he wouldn't say anything. Maybe he would tell her to get out, go home, never return.  
  
Soft words, rasping in his throat. "Forget it." He closed his eyes and she saw the stuttered sigh as his chest rose and fell. "It's not your fault. Just please, forget it. Don't do it again."  
  
Hot with shame and something else. But she could still nod. And flee from the heat in his apartment into the cool night air and back into the oblivious silence and darkness of Lily's living room.  
  
But not back into the oblivion of sleep.  
  
***  
  
There, that chapter was a little longer. I don't have anything else to say. Except maybe: thanks for reviews! Can't say that enough! You are all the life-blood of this story! 


	22. She's Leaving Home

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Twenty-One: She's Leaving Home (Bye-Bye)  
  
by thelittletree  
  
It wasn't so hard at first. And he was almost able to convince himself then that it would stay that way.  
  
Just a kiss. Just a mistake. She'd been drinking, and she was still recovering. Not a surprise, really, that it had happened -- no doubt anymore that she'd noticed. Attracted. He'd caught himself thinking more than once about the memory-dream, nights ago. Making love, swallowed up in all of those forgotten feelings, close enough to be sharing breath.  
  
Still so damn weak to the bits and pieces Hojo had left him. If he'd wanted to turn him into a monster, he could at least have done more than a half-assed job of it.  
  
She'd been right there, looking faintly surprised by his nearness, and though he'd struggled against the urge, all he'd been able to think about was how much he'd wanted to be that close again. Like fire, like a flame blossoming in the pit of his stomach. Like the first time he'd glanced up from her excitedly scribbled notes to realize too late that they were nearly nose to nose. Lucrecia, the smell of her hair, skin, traces of her perfume. The shy invitation in her eyes. And just giving in to the temptation to finally know what it might be like to let that lightning between them run its course...  
  
She must've seen it written all over his face. Goddammit. Just giving him what he'd wanted. He should've said no, in the end. Pretended he was sleeping when she'd knocked. Saved them both the discomfort, and the embarrassment. Nightmares were no excuse. Being sort of lonely in the dark hours wasn't reason enough to go back on his earlier decision: she would stay down there with Lily; he would stay upstairs until he'd recovered enough to go back to work. Everything would have eventually gone back to normal when she'd gone back to Kalm.  
  
Not exciting all of the time, not pleasant all of the time; but predictable, and with its merits.  
  
Nothing for it now, though. It was done. He would just have to take his own advice and forget it.  
  
He'd gotten up from the floor, gone back to bed. Pulled out of his shirt, tried to get comfortable. Kicked off the blankets. Thought briefly about going for a walk, and then had given up the idea (his hip ached, and if Lily found out about it he was sure she wouldn't have a problem providing twenty-four hour care for him). Wandered out of his bedroom for some painkillers, the last of the whiskey. Eventually managed to drift to sleep again on the couch as the sun was rising, a book still pinched limply in his fingers.  
  
He could learn to forget it again, he'd thought before finally dropping off. It wasn't so hard. It wouldn't be so hard. He'd lived three years so far, basically alone. It was all about survival, after all. He'd traveled by himself before settling in Nibelheim, sometimes with little more than a coat and a patch of grass to sleep on, just looking for some kind of purpose, some kind of reason to live after the need for vengeance against Hojo had been sated.  
  
In the Turks, too, he'd been solitary, even in that strange camaraderie that had grown through necessity between mercenaries. Hadn't ever really looked for friendship, companionship.  
  
Until *her*, of course. Lucrecia. Suddenly, poignantly completed like he'd never known he could be. Looking into those green eyes, basking in her slow smile, reveling in the feel of her there, drowsing beside him in the afterglow. So much in love, he'd thought it would never end.  
  
He'd learned to forget in the three years and some, since the coffin. Even learned to make a living out of the horror that churned inside of him. A semi-normal life. If he could just get back to that.  
  
But dreams were no escape. They only served as reminders of his weakness. And when he woke again in the cloudy gray glow of mid-morning, it was to the wish that he'd never met a woman named Tifa, or Lucrecia.  
  
It *was* going to be hard. Broken open, and though cracks could be fixed that wall would never be as strong again. So many damn memories flooding in until he felt he had to do something with the pressure of hurt, grief, anger building in him. He wanted to hunt, give in to *them*, just let their violent emotions roll over him until they crushed his humanity out. Anything, anything...  
  
Anything to keep him from having to face it. Hurt, he'd never healed properly. Bereaved, he'd never grieved properly. But, please, anything to keep from thinking. Just for a little while longer. He wasn't so naive as to believe it would never catch up with him, but, please, he didn't want someday to have to be today. He'd found a measure of quiet and he couldn't stand the idea that it might turn sour, like everything else, before its time.  
  
No wonder Tifa had been standing on the edge of that bridge, ready to plunge herself beyond the reach of her own mind. But he couldn't die. Could run, maybe, though that was only ever a temporary respite. But maybe it would be enough. Just long enough to get grounded again in the present.  
  
He changed the bandages, pulled on his shirt, found his boots by the door. Shrugged into his coat and quickly slipped a band around his hair, tucking the tail under his collar. The wound on his leg was gone without so much as a scar, but the others ached. It felt like he'd been injured in one way or another for a long, long time. Limping, hunching, favouring. And he should be resting to let them heal. But he'd never learned to heal properly.  
  
Out the door, down the stairs, outside. Just for a few hours. And, if she thought he was still sleeping, it was possible Lily would never know he'd been gone at all.  
  
"She's just about to come and check on you, Vincent."  
  
He could usually sense it when someone was looking at him, but this time he guessed he'd been too preoccupied. Tifa, dressed, as had sort of become the norm, in some of Lily's loose clothing and perched on the shallow step of Lily's door. Bare feet peeking out from under the ankle cuffs of pants that might've been a little short, hair tucked over one shoulder to keep the breeze from picking at it, a cigarette pinched between two fingers. Sitting casually, he suspected, a moment ago before he'd appeared. Now with her back straight, knees drawn up, looking ready to stand if need be. Twitching the cigarette as if she couldn't help fidgeting a little.  
  
She must've heard him on the stairs as well, he realized. And he couldn't help wondering if she'd considered letting him pass without saying a word.  
  
She dropped her eyes to one of her knees and starting picking at a crease in the material. "You don't have to leave." There was a note of resigned calm to her voice, something his mind immediately associated with the words: 'You know what you're doing, Cloud. We'll stay on the Highwind until you and the others return'. The 'others' had always somehow included Aeris back then. And they were convincing words, he knew, in most cases.  
  
Like the words: 'If she's happy, then I don't mind.' Convincing enough that he'd almost believed them, too.  
  
"I've decided to go back to Kalm today." She brought the cigarette to her lips with the awkwardness of someone who has never done the action before. Took a drag and only coughed a little as she exhaled. "I'm getting my first cheque in a few hours and I'll be on my way." It was a moment before she lifted her eyes again, as if she had to prepare her expression. A smile, nearly flawless. Even Lily might've been fooled into thinking she meant what she said. "Thank you for everything, Vincent. And I'm sorry..." Something, like a hitch in her bravado, but it passed with surprising ease. "...again, for all of the trouble."  
  
Where was the girl who'd spoken of responsibility, so sure for a time that people were answerable only for themselves? Where was the Tifa who'd been in enough pain to be selfish?  
  
Here was the Tifa he remembered from Avalanche. Confident, smiling, so strong and sure of herself. Unwilling to be a burden, conscientious enough to want to make others comfortable, even if it meant a sacrifice on her part.  
  
She tossed the cigarette to the ground and nearly stepped on it before remembering that she wasn't wearing any shoes. A little startled for a moment by what she had almost done, and he didn't miss the tiny shock of embarrassment as she turned for a moment to glance at him. And then she lowered her gaze again and gave a self-conscious little chuckle. "A disgusting habit, I shouldn't have given in." Stood with that unmistakable fighter's grace; it would always give her away as someone who had studied, to those who knew about that sort of thing. "I'll stall her for a minute, if you want to go back upstairs. Just don't..." And then she gave a small shrug, smiling in what he took for faint amusement as she looked over her shoulder. "Don't tell Lily that I'm planning to leave. I don't think she'd let me."  
  
Lily had been the first in a long time -- the first to sacrifice something, her security and comfort level in her own home, for him. Not until later that he'd realized what she was getting out of his silent company: someone to care for without a lot of messy emotionalism; someone to give her some purpose back; someone who might justify the survival of this hardened northern Lily, transplanted from the ruin of Midgar and hidden away like her own garden in back of her house.  
  
Tifa, however, had nothing to gain from this. Except what she'd wanted in the beginning. To go back to Kalm. And nothing there except a return to debt, loneliness, and the possible desire to escape again by her own hand.  
  
He wanted what he'd had back. He wanted her to go, to stop reminding him of things he'd lost. He wanted to believe her. It was her own life, after all. She hadn't ever asked for his help or interference. It was her own choice, and everyone had their reasons for doing things.  
  
But the argument rang hollow. Smoking wouldn't kill him, but if she went back to Kalm it might kill her. Her choice...but he had a choice, too.  
  
He no longer felt the desire to run so keenly, now that things had turned around and the future seemed a little more hopeful. He would go to Kalm. She would never see him; no more risky midnight rendezvous. But he would be there, keeping tabs, just in case, for as long as he deemed necessary.  
  
If she could sacrifice for his comfort, he could sacrifice again for her life, and this time with nothing to gain. Both of their debts to each other would be repaid, and they could go on about their lives as if all of this hadn't happened.  
  
Though, really, if he was truthful... He struggled with it for a moment before finally giving in to the admission. He would miss the poker games, the brief respite from nightmares, the quick, slightly bantering tone their conversations had been developing.  
  
And some unacknowledged part would miss more than that.  
  
She was still waiting for his reply, and looking a little worried now at his hesitation, as if she thought he might be considering saying no to her request. But there was nothing to consider. He gave a small nod. "Our secret," he told her, using what he knew she would understand. "But don't 'borrow' another chocobo from the stable. I'll take you up tonight, after Lily has gone to bed."  
  
She couldn't hide the surprise in her expression at his offer. And then she was shaking her head and there was a little smile on her lips that she seemed unable to completely repress, somewhere between annoyance and a kind of sardonic amusement. "I don't need a chaperone, Vincent. I'm not going to go plunging off of a cliff. Really, I can make it on my own."  
  
He wondered if she really believed it. "I need to leave anyway, as a precaution. I don't want a repeat of what happened with Hellmasker. However, it is up to you."  
  
And she stared at him for a moment, as if judging his sincerity, his motives. Seemed unable to come up with a reason he might insist. And gave in with a sigh and a nod. "All right. Tonight. I'll come out when Lily's asleep." Then she turned back to the matter at hand, put her fingers out for the doorknob. And stopped. Seemed to struggle with herself. And glanced back at him, slowly reaching into a pocket, looking uneasy but determined. "I took these for you," she said quietly, dropping her eyes as she pulled a couple of Lily's cigarettes into view. He wondered when the woman would start missing them. "Lily probably won't let you smoke them. I was just going to leave them outside your door, but..."  
  
The gesture caught him off-guard, and he realized that he'd been expecting her to be feeling sort of bitter; it was his discomfort that was making her feel she had to leave, after all. But she didn't seem bitter, as if she was blaming him.  
  
And he thought he ought to accept, not only because they were cigarettes. Earlier, he might've ignored her or walked away. He didn't need her tact or any portion of her regard, of anyone's regard. He was selfish, and he knew it; but after so much pain, he almost felt justified for it. He deserved a little bit of peace, didn't he?  
  
But she was going to the trouble of being civil, even thoughtful. He could at least do a measure of the same.  
  
He wasn't sure for a moment if she wanted him to approach, but after he took the first step toward her she seemed willing to meet him more than halfway. Held out her hand a little awkwardly, an arm's-length away, and then gave a sharp little shrug, glancing up only once before dropping her gaze. Uncomfortable, very unlike the informality of seeing her wrapped in a blanket and huddled on his floor, but he couldn't tell if she was uncomfortable for him or for herself. Perhaps for the both of them. When he raised his palm, she quickly dropped the cigarettes. And then, instead of moving away, she hesitated and gave a sigh.  
  
"You should head upstairs now," she told him, not looking into his face but, he suspected, at one of his buttons. "I'll try to delay her, but I don't know how much longer she'll be." And then seemed to make herself glance up. Met his eyes, and he could see for a moment through her mask of confidence. "I really am grateful for everything," she said quietly, as if it might be a kind of confession. "And sorry if...you know. Just...sorry it happened this way. But I am going to be all right." Then she then dropped her chin and paused as if there might be some more words. And turned and went inside.  
  
And he went upstairs, pulled out of his boots and coat and shirt and made his quiet way back to bed.  
  
Lily would not be happy when she found out what had happened. But it would go back to the way it had been, once Lily knew Tifa was all right. Once he knew Tifa was all right. It would all go back to normal.  
  
And he could live his semblance of a life for a little while longer.  
  
***  
  
Well, not so much...stuff happening. I was going to make this chapter a little longer and have one more chapter after this one, but as it turns out there are going to be two more chapters and an epilogue. Yup. How many times can I say chapter in one paragraph? Chapter, chapter.  
  
Thanks again for reviews! I'm just going to say it over and over! I'm so glad people are enjoying this. Not exactly a *conventional* romance, but there are readers! Thank you so much for your feedback! And...the title for this chap comes from one of the Beatles songs, one of my favourites. That's all I have to say. 


	23. Heroes Often Fail

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Twenty-Two: Heroes Often Fail  
  
by thelittletree  
  
She'd done it to herself again. Someone (her father?) had told her once that situations you didn't deal with properly would inevitably come up again and again in your life until you did deal with them. Too right, like bad karma. One day she hoped it would teach her something.  
  
Because this time she was only losing again. Losing something that felt enough like home to make her wish it would stay that way; losing it because she was weak and lonely and bad with confrontations. Though maybe she *had* learned something out of it. This time she wasn't staying in that discomfort until everything blew wide open, wasn't staying until she and Vincent couldn't pretend it wasn't there anymore and they just gave in. She didn't need another healthy dose of regret, thank you.  
  
She'd been there on the couch, unable to sleep, thinking, measuring pros and cons, reliving the heat and the shame of the kiss until she'd wanted to sink permanently out of sight and never have to face Vincent again. Knowing what she had to do, and not wanting to do it. But knowing there was no other way.  
  
One of them would have to leave. Because it would get uncomfortable either way, even if they resolved to ignore each other. Lily, she was sure, wouldn't stand for it. And, although she might tell herself not to, might even listen to herself for awhile, she knew she would eventually find herself outside of his door again. And somehow she couldn't help believing that he would eventually find himself letting her in.  
  
Not an impenetrable wall, like she'd thought. Just a man, like other men. Just as prone to human desires.  
  
And just as haunted by regret and the fear of old pain as she was. Maybe more so. Not such a mystery after all. Just a human, like her, trying to find some peace in a world that was still catching its breath after starting awake from the nightmare of Jenova and Sephiroth and Meteor.  
  
And she knew she couldn't steal what he'd found away from him. Like playing hide-and-seek. Scattering, searching desperately for somewhere dark to crouch and breath into your hand and wait for the end of the game. Finding the perfect spot, only to realize that there was someone already hiding in it, someone so afraid of the light that you couldn't imagine pulling them out to take the spot for yourself.  
  
She would go to Kalm. And he could have his dark, quiet place back. Simply following the rules of the game. Nothing in the rules that said she had to like it.  
  
It was laughably easy to keep that smile on her face, she noted wretchedly. To chuckle at Lily's jokes, drink her tea, make small talk. She'd been an expert at it, once upon a time. Not breaking down, even in Mideel, until she'd been sure she was alone. Alone, except for a man that might as well not have been there. He'd never really been there with her, maybe.  
  
And then, finding her eyes drawn to those cigarettes. 'To relax m' nerves when I'm flying,' Cid had told her. Not that she'd completely believed him, because he hadn't flown half as much as he'd smoked. But even Vincent, watching his expression melt into something softer, almost like walking past a serious stranger on the sidewalk and seeing them break into an unexpected, unfettered smile at the sight of you. Such a small thing, but such a big change, like you were suddenly looking at a different person. If a cigarette could relax even Vincent...  
  
Sitting outside, breathing in air that felt good for her lungs; crisp Nibelheim air. And then sucking in the tobacco. This would be the last morning, she knew. Squinting her eyes a little against the sun and the breeze, letting the grass tickle the soles of her feet. After this, it would be Kalm again. And she would never do this in Kalm. Only at home, in Nibelheim, on Lily's doorstep. She would look back and remember this time as something close to heaven, the way she remembered the years with her father. Memories that would make her eyes prick with tears, and mostly because she knew she would never get that time back.  
  
Never had a mother. Never had many girl friends; not close ones, at least. Not until Aeris. But then, there had been Cloud between them. Could talk about anything with Aeris: guilt-free stories about her past (so sheltered in the Midgar slums, Aeris had always been interested to hear about the origins of Avalanche); funny memories about Barret and Marlene; sometimes they'd even talked about their parents -- Aeris growing up with only a mother, herself with only her father. But never about Cloud. An instinctively taboo subject. Though Tifa had wanted, had *so* wanted to set that right between them. But so afraid it would ruin their friendship...  
  
Lily. If Aeris had been like a sister, Lily was like a mother. Aeris had been murdered; she was leaving Lily behind. Nothing good ever lasted. It was just the way of life -- her life. Mountain-top experiences, but you couldn't stay on the peak forever. You eventually had to descend once more into the dark, hazy valleys and face your fears.  
  
And that someday had become today.  
  
Lily went upstairs a few minutes after Vincent, and judging by the lack of agitated footsteps on the floor above Tifa could guess that Vincent had not been caught out of bed. Bringing him breakfast, and then Lily would come back down here, get into her grubbies, plop a floppy hat onto Tifa's head, and they'd go into the garden. Then they'd have lunch, maybe that leftover spaghetti, and maybe they'd go up into Vincent's apartment and play some cards. Drink tea. Lily would lose, maybe Tifa would find herself sharing an amused glance with Vincent before they worked to out bid each other, read each other's bluffs. Vincent would win, and Lily would commiserate with her loudly to no visible effect on Vincent. A simple, predictable life in company she probably never would have looked to and filled with the comfortable, understated kind of affection that Vincent and Lily shared.  
  
But it was over now, and she couldn't help but feel she'd taken it for granted. Felt the familiar tingle of tears along her jawline, the end of her nose, and struggled to repress them. Too much of the past, too much fear, too many things left unresolved, not the least of which were boundaries in an unexpected attraction neither she nor Vincent had been able to make themselves address head-on. If they'd both been emotionally stronger, if they'd known how to deal with it from the start, maybe it wouldn't have come to this.  
  
But no use in thinking about what could have been if she'd been different. She'd already wasted a year doing that.  
  
She wanted to forget that she was leaving tonight. She wanted just to do things as she'd been doing them, like nothing was wrong, like she could stay forever. One more day of a normal life, with food and conversation and reasons to get out of bed. But she didn't think she could do it. Her poker face was good, but not that good.  
  
She got up from the table it felt like she'd been sitting at for hours. Took a glance around Lily's kitchen, wondering how many of the little details she would remember. Magnets, that jar of change, the pattern on the plates. Changed out of Lily's clothing and into her own, recently washed. Put on her shoes, and left the house.  
  
She wouldn't get to say good-bye tonight, she realized, or thank you. Not really; not properly. Poor Lily. She would just wake up in the morning to find herself all alone with no explanation why.  
  
That tingle of tears again. She wished it could be different. But she'd never had the chance to say good-bye, ever. Not really. Not to her mother, her father, Zangan, Aeris, Cloud. She thought she should probably be used to sudden partings.  
  
But she wasn't.  
  
To Mr. Fallowfield's store, to get her cheque. She would send some back to Lily and Vincent for taking care of her, for her poker tab. Use the rest toward her debt. And try to find another job. Try to start again. She could do it. She would remember the Tifa she'd been in Midgar. She could do it.  
  
Hello, good-bye, Nibelheim.  
  
Maybe she'd take a walk around, just for old time's sake. Past where the mansion had stood; along the street where she and Cloud had grown up, not far from each other; through the town square. She wondered if the well was still standing.  
  
He'd been shorter than her, shorter than some of the boys she'd played with, even. But with a kind of steel in his face, the haunted look of someone being eaten away inside by the desire to prove themselves. Too old a face for a child, still with roundish cheeks and hair that, though shoved into an untidy ponytail, would not stay out of his eyes.  
  
They'd hardly known each other. But he'd been smitten. That boy no one could touch, wanting to prove himself for her. Promising with an indifferent shrug to be her hero. One day, he would save her.  
  
The slice of Sephiroth's sword. The only time, and he'd been too late. After that, she'd grown up and learned the value of being able to save herself. And he'd gone on to be Aeris' hero. Though he hadn't been able to save her.  
  
And when Tifa had finally needed a hero, Cloud hadn't been there to scoop her out of the water, cry at her broken heart, brush her wet hair from her forehead and promise to love her forever and never leave her.  
  
It had been Vincent. Not a pair of warm arms, but an excuse that no one would have left her in the water. Not a gallant saviour who wanted to hold her and make everything better, but a man with wary eyes and reluctant lips that wanted for warming, who felt responsible for life. Selfish enough to act selfless, but then be willing to take her back to the place he'd rescued her from.  
  
The healing, the communication, the understanding were not his forte. Like Cloud in that respect. But at least he'd been around to save her and be what she'd needed: a protector against herself. And now, it was her turn to save him from something he obviously didn't want to face. And maybe this time she would call Barret.  
  
She loved Barret. Barret loved her. He would do all he could.  
  
Though she wished...  
  
Damn. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, willing herself not to cry.  
  
She wished she could at least say good-bye.  
  
***  
  
Lily came up that evening with some supper for him, some of what he couldn't help but think of as her 'famous lasagna'. Though he couldn't imagine that many people had ever eaten it. Himself, Tifa, her dead husband in Midgar. But it was good, probably the best thing she made. Aside, maybe, from her banana bread.  
  
It took a little bit arguing, and eventually his stubborn refusal to sit in bed any longer, that made her give in to his request that they eat in the kitchen. Not only was it more practical, it also gave him the chance to show her that he wasn't an invalid, that he was healing. That way, she might not be so angry when she realized he was gone.  
  
Not that she wouldn't be angry. She would be furious. No doubt in his mind that she would blame him first for Tifa's departure; not that he wasn't to blame, but it had been Tifa's decision. He hadn't forced her, and once Lily knew Tifa was all right in Kalm she would eventually forgive him. Though it would probably be a good idea not to return for a couple of weeks, and to keep phone conversations short.  
  
Lily seemed preoccupied as they ate, staring at a spot on his table as she chewed. She was even scowling a little, he realized. Not often that he was the one saying something when she was the silent one.  
  
"Something's bothering you."  
  
She glanced up at him, surprised, and her scowl softened a little, a corner of her mouth twitching upward. "God, must be obvious if *you* can see it." She sighed and turned her attention back to her plate, jabbing at a piece of lasagna and taking a moment to wind it in some of the melted cheese. "I don't know. Tifa's kind of moping again. Just quiet. Nothing to worry about, probably. She knows she can talk to me." She put the forkful in her mouth and chewed for a few seconds. "She just went to bed this afternoon, said she had a headache. I don't know." She seemed to shrug a little as she went about cutting another piece, not meeting his eyes. And he could almost guess what she was going to say next. Her way, always, of saying something she wasn't sure how he would react to. "I'm glad, though, that you two seem to be getting on again. Best thing for her now is just to feel like she's worth something, that she can deal with things."  
  
Kind of like survivors, he found himself thinking. He wasn't interested in getting to know anyone else, really, around Nibelheim, but there were those who tried to talk to him. Lonely people, just looking for someone to listen, someone to justify the fact that they had survived Meteor, or the collapse of Midgar. Not that he had anything to offer them.  
  
He wasn't a survivor, couldn't relate. He simply endured. Would always have to endure. And that was something no one who wasn't facing the same fate would ever truly understand.  
  
"She'll be all right. There's a strength in her."  
  
He hadn't meant it to sound like anything more than the words themselves said, but a passing twinkle in Lily's eye made him want to scowl. Lily didn't understand how it had to be, how far detached he was from the rest of the human race. She didn't understand why he might want to forget. She would never comprehend why he wouldn't act on an attraction to a woman. Too many risks involved, especially with what he was now.  
  
It was just Lily's way. So candid and human and vital, he felt sure that if she had gone through what he had been through, she would've found some way to conquer it. Would've found a way to bring back her quality of life. Like she had after the death of her husband, the ruination of her home.  
  
Would never understand what drove him to do what he knew he would always do: escape, hide, forget. It was just his way.  
  
"Don't doubt that she'll be all right. I'm just glad you're not trying to chase her off anymore. Maybe she's bringing you around."  
  
He didn't want to hear it. There was still some shame and guilt there, and he didn't want to have to deal with those feelings. She'd made her own decision. Partly his fault, maybe, but in the end it had been her choice...  
  
He knew Lily could sense his discomfort with her topic, and he was grateful when she backed down. "Eat, Vince. You're a goddamn rail. Eat something."  
  
They ate in silence for almost a minute. But Vincent knew it wouldn't last. He could almost count the seconds until...  
  
"So..."  
  
He smirked to himself. Predictable.  
  
"You're going to have to...go again sometime, aren't you? To...feed those..." She faltered and gave him a helpless look. "Can I call them creatures? What the hell are they?"  
  
"Call them what you like." He certainly wasn't attached enough to them to feel insulted. "I'll have to go soon."  
  
She nodded a little and turned back to her plate, cutting up the last of her meal. "Well, just remember to be careful. I don't care how quick you heal up afterwards, you shouldn't be pushing it."  
  
Always worrying, but he'd come to expect it so that it barely registered anymore when, once, it had grated on him.  
  
"Though I suppose you don't need a lecture from me. The threat of antiseptic should be enough, huh?" She looked up at him with a grin, and he only recognized the tension as it melted away in familiarity. Not completely comfortable, yet, with the idea that he wasn't alone in his body. Though he couldn't shake the feeling that the discomfort existed more because she wasn't sure how to address the pain of his past. They'd never talked about his past. Though, maybe that would change.  
  
And this time he allowed a smirk at her tone. "Yes, antiseptic. Not the pain itself, that's not deterrent enough."  
  
She chuckled a little. "Well, it obviously hasn't been. God, you damn masochist." And then she stood from the table and collected their dishes. "I'm going to check on Tifa, see if she needs anything. Maybe we'll be up later to play poker."  
  
But he doubted Tifa would come. It would just be Lily and himself from now on. And he knew they would both feel the loss of that third player. Especially someone there in the middle, better able to hide her feelings than Lily and not quite as good as he was. The perfect balance, he'd found himself thinking more than once when the three of them had played. Just enough to keep him winning, but not without the flavour of competition. He hoped he wouldn't lose interest without it.  
  
"Now, I know you don't want me to ask, but before I go do you need any help getting back to..."  
  
He raised a hand to stop her; that was a little too far.  
  
"Okay, okay. I'm going then." She slipped her feet into her sandals and left the apartment.  
  
And he made his way to the couch in the living room, picking up the book he'd left on the coffee table. A little unpleasant to think that the next time they talked, likely over the phone tomorrow morning, she would be yelling at him.  
  
***  
  
The night was cool and she wished as she stepped outside that she had a coat for the trip. Closed the door silently behind her and repressed a shiver. She'd slept some that afternoon on Lily's bed, claiming she had a headache, but right now there was very little she wanted to do more than go back into the living room and slip under the blanket on the couch. However, she made herself leave the step and head out around the house. She'd made up her mind, and she wasn't going to be wishy-washy this time.  
  
'Good-bye, Lily. I'll ask Vincent to tell you how much I appreciate everything you did, and how much I'll miss you. Damn.' She held back the tears. Not until she reached Kalm.  
  
Vincent was waiting on a chocobo at the edge of the street, motionless, and she wondered how long he'd been there. How long he might've waited there if she'd changed her mind. Took a breath and approached.  
  
And was caught off-guard as he held something out to her in his hand. Something black, that hung down like clothing. A jacket, she realized as she reached for it. A man's leather jacket.  
  
"Thank you," she told him, pushing her arms through the sleeves and then working to free her hands from the cuffs. Too big, and she almost gave a nervous chuckle as she pictured herself in it. But she knew no chuckle, nervous or otherwise, would do anything for the uncomfortable tension she felt sure even a stranger would be able to sense between them.  
  
It wouldn't have been right, but now she was starting to regret having agreed to Vincent's offer to take her to Kalm. If she'd 'borrowed' another chocobo, she would've sent it on its way in a few hours, after all. Even his own chocobo, if he'd suggested it. He could've waited a few hours to go out into the wild.  
  
But it felt too late now to go back on the decision, as if Vincent might suspect she was having second thoughts. Not that she cared what he thought, she told herself, but she didn't want to be seen as that weak, indecisive girl anymore. She was strong and determined. She was going back to Kalm. And it didn't matter how she got there.  
  
She stepped up to the side of his mount, smelling feathers and the unmistakable scent of the stable, and put her hands where she knew they were supposed to go. And resigned herself to the fact that this was going to be awkward. Sharing, of course, meant there was less room to maneuver in. And as she jumped and pulled herself up behind him with a grunt, she struggled to keep from shattering the perimeters of personal space. Once this wouldn't have been a problem, but now her arms trembled and her fingers ached as she fought against the pull of gravity that seemed to want nothing more than to see her humiliate herself.  
  
And then, there was Vincent's elbow. She couldn't help but glance up at him at the movement, though it wasn't hard to guess what he was proposing. A gesture he might've offered to anyone, his face expressionless and half-shadowed in the moonlight, even with his hair swept back. And for a moment she felt an irrational kind of anger toward him. Willing to help her up, but not willing to help her by letting her stay.  
  
But it was her decision, she reminded herself. He never would have made her go. But it would never have been resolved between them; the discomfort would have deteriorated everything eventually. This was the way it had to be. One of them had to leave. And he'd been here first.  
  
She grabbed onto his arm and was grateful for the steady strength as she settled herself.  
  
"All right?"  
  
She considered things for a moment; her position, how fast they might be riding. Chewed her lip for a second. "I might need something to hold onto," she told him, trying not to sound apologetic about it.  
  
And he hesitated a moment. "My coat."  
  
She put out her hands and was irritated to notice how uncomfortable she still felt touching him. Closed her fingers around the material and was relieved not to have brushed him through it with her fingers. Damn this. Damn feeling lonely and needy and wanting somebody to hold her, to want her. Damn it for ruining everything. And damn him for being attracted in the first place to make some part of her think it might be a possibility...  
  
"Okay. I'm ready."  
  
And without another word, he started them on their way.  
  
***  
  
Sorry this chapter took a little longer than some of the others to post. Trying to work my way into another part time position. Yup. So maybe it's a good thing this fic is almost finished. I'd probably have more trouble writing chapters between two jobs. *grin*  
  
Thanks for reviews! So, so much! I'll be sorry to see this fic end. Ah, Vincent, I suppose I'll have to let you go sometime... 


	24. Defying Gravity

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Twenty-Three: Defying Gravity  
  
by thelittletree  
  
It seemed to take years. Years of riding behind Vincent, her cold hands fingered in his coat, her breath misting out of her mouth in fleeting puffs of warm air, her eyes wandering until they inevitably came back to that spot between his shoulder-blades. Staring and trying to keep her mind blank and sometimes wondering if he could feel her gaze boring into him. Wondering what he was feeling. Eventually struggling to stay awake and half-dreaming there had been a terrible rock slide, so terrible that no one would be able to get in or out of Kalm for a long, long time.  
  
But there was the town when she started from her slumber, its lights shining like small beacons in the soft, crawling fog that perpetually crept up from the ocean foam. And the rest of the journey took no time at all.  
  
She felt stiff and half frozen when they finally dismounted at the road entrance, bathed in the glow of the travelers' lights. And standing in the salty tang of the breeze coming off of the water, pulling her hair over a shoulder to keep it from whipping her face, she thought she'd never missed Nibelheim so much. Something refreshing about Kalm the first time she and Cloud had arrived here, buoyed on love and dreams, but now it seemed crowded and seedy. She didn't want to stay here.  
  
Vincent started forward first, leading the chocobo at a steady pace Tifa had to work to keep up with. At first she assumed he was simply accompanying her to her door, but as they approached the turn-off to her street he gave no sign of caring the least bit where she lived. He carried on as she stopped walking, obviously with his own destination in mind. Well, this was it then. She hesitated a moment, caught between calling a farewell and just letting him go.  
  
And sighed heavily. Damn him, she wanted a parting word with *somebody*.  
  
"Good-bye, Vincent!"  
  
She saw his head come up at the sound of her voice, and then he glanced around for a second as if surprised that he'd lost track of her. Eventually spotted her. And backtracked a few steps so, she thought, he wouldn't have to shout to be heard.  
  
"Your house is there?" He indicated the street behind her with a flick of his eyes.  
  
She looked quickly over her shoulder, as if to check. "Yes. The bar."  
  
He nodded a little and spared a glimpse for his previous heading. "I have something to take care of." And then he hesitated, though it was hard to tell whether he was uncertain or just taking care in choosing his words. "I'll find you before I leave, to say good-bye."  
  
And she realized that she was surprised. Never had a hello from him, but he seemed to think a good-bye was an important enough triviality to indulge in, even after everything. Maybe Lily had managed to drill some manners into him. Or maybe he was doing it for her sake, since she was making a point of it. Whatever the reason, it was something -- something to wait for, maybe to look forward to. She would be alone in a minute, but he would be coming back.  
  
She wouldn't think beyond that until it was happening. Until she was being left here. Though...  
  
God, her mind was already forming the plea, trying to push it down to her lips. 'Would you...could you stay here one night? I have a couch. I don't want to be alone...'  
  
She swallowed it down unsaid. "Okay."  
  
He nodded again and turned away. Walked off until he'd blended into the darkness, disappeared behind a building. And, rubbing her arms through the leather of the coat with cold hands, she pushed away from the spot she felt moored to and headed for the empty house that had come up with an unsettling frequency in her dreams.  
  
Her keys, she realized as she arrived at the door. Damn. Where were they? She hadn't done something stupid like thrown them away before she'd jumped, had she? Oh, no. She just hadn't locked the door. The knob was icy after so many nights without fingers to warm it. And for a moment, she felt a spark of old affection and sympathy for the building that had been her home, *their* home, for two years. So much it had seen and suffered through with them. And then the spark was gone. She turned the knob.  
  
From here, she could go upstairs or into the bar. Both places would be covered in dust, she was sure. But there was a little bit of warmth in the bar, at least, sealed in bottles. With what came out as a shaky sigh, she pushed a hand through her wind-tangled hair and stepped through the doorway into the room that had once served so many.  
  
Dark, and she fumbled for the light switch. Closed her eyes and turned away from the glare that made her see red behind her eyelids.  
  
The sound of quick movement, a startled, gasping breath. "Oh...oh, God...Tifa?"  
  
Dreaming, dreaming. Always dreaming. She was still asleep on the chocobo, she thought inanely for a moment. Having a nightmare. Time to wake up. She opened her eyes.  
  
His hair was a limp, tousled confusion of blond. He hadn't shaved in a long time, she guessed. His clothes were rumpled and streaked with dirt in places. His eyes were wide and bright and filled with aching surprise.  
  
A drink forgotten in his hand on the bar, his fingers trembling around the glass. Sitting on a stool, the way he always did, one boot set with the arch hooked on a rung, the other flat on the floor. Tracked drying muddy footprints across the dusty floor. She didn't care. She didn't care about that. If she touched him, his skin would be warm. If she held him, his body would be firm resistance against arms that might try to crush him. If she slapped him his flesh and bones would sting her hand.  
  
He stood suddenly, as if just realizing that he was still sitting. "God, where have you been? I asked everyone, and no one knew."  
  
Words wanted to come out of her mouth. Her mind was processing answers. But something in her was screaming, screaming so loud, and so afraid that if she opened her mouth that scream would just burst out into the silence. Couldn't do this. Oh God, couldn't do this right now. Everything that wanted to kill him, hold him, blame him, cry in the warm, solid comfort of his embrace...  
  
Too much. Snapping...  
  
"Tifa! Wait!"  
  
She didn't know where she was going at first. Just running, running, her heart pounding, her lungs searing with strange breaths like sobs, her stomach a clenched fist inside of her. He wasn't supposed to be here. She had to get away. She couldn't think. She had to think. If only something would swoop down and grab her, take her far, far away from here. To a mountain-top, just for a little while longer, until she could map out her heart and mind and find out how to make everything all right again...  
  
Not until she saw him, the only movement in a town lost in oblivious sleep, coming out of the inn and turning toward where she knew the stables were, did she realize she'd been looking for him.  
  
'Saviour. Please, once more, saviour. Save me.'  
  
As if he'd heard her mental petition, maybe her driving footsteps, she saw him turn his head sharply to look at her. Just a couple of seconds, just another two seconds and she'd be there. The sudden dip of his hand, less than a second, inside the shadow of his coat, and he was armed as if she might've been trying to escape a hoarde of monsters. Instinctive reaction to an unknown threat, some part of her realized. She'd once had fighting as an ingrained piece of her life, always prepared to drop to the defensive when she was startled, too.  
  
Afraid, but she'd thought she was ready. Weak, so weak, so scared, running like a child dashing through the reaching shadows of too-long hallways to a parent's bedroom. Such a goddamn child, and she felt ashamed, suddenly ashamed for running. Cloud... God, he'd been looking for her. How long had he been here? She had to bring herself back under control, had to tell him something. He deserved...  
  
Abruptly brought out of her thoughts. Not used to this. Sitting so long, too. Shouldn't have been surprised. But she wasn't prepared anymore; one of her knees buckling and she stumbled, tripping, couldn't get her balance back. Damn, oh, damn the pavement...  
  
A flash of black-clothed reflexes, awkward and a little painful as hard metal fingers grabbed for her. Saving her with a little pain to save her from the greater pain. Yanked up, still overbalanced, gravity still a force threatening to bring her hard to the ground. Then arms and a body to form a firm cushion to fall against, to pinch with her fingers as she desperately worked to right herself. 'Sorry, sorry,' she thought as she glanced up into the grimace on his face a moment before getting her feet under her. Taking a steadying step from him and suddenly not sure what she wanted of him as he glanced, uncertain and wary, over her head.  
  
Wanted to run. Part of her just wanted to run and never look back. Yes, yes, cling to him and beg him to take her away again. Please, she couldn't stay here, please, please...  
  
"Tifa!"  
  
She'd had nightmares of him. So many of them it was almost hard to imagine he wouldn't start screaming and accusing her. But this Cloud looked so weary, so desperate, so confused. Not like the close-mouthed, angry man who'd left her behind, spent so long chafing at her side, at the places they didn't quite fit together. Come back to find her, and she hadn't been here. Worried about her...  
  
He slowed as he approached, as he recognized Vincent, she thought, his face screwing into a frown that tore at her. Wary, suspicious. And something in her ached to explain, to justify everything. I was falling, he caught me, saved me, kissed him but it didn't mean anything I swear...  
  
"Vincent." He stopped, fingers going into his hair. Such a familiar gesture; feeling self-conscious and unsure, she knew, though his expression didn't change. "What are you doing here?"  
  
And she could feel the change behind her, Vincent stiffening, suddenly caught somewhere he didn't want to be, and she remembered finding him in the bathroom, quickly doling out stitches. 'Please leave...'  
  
Didn't want to explain. Had never explained himself when they'd questioned him. Had always walked away.  
  
"Leaving."  
  
And she felt him withdraw, like losing a wall at her back. Heading again toward the stable. A flash of panic and anger, and she couldn't help turning as he walked away, one hand out as if it might be enough to hold him there. "Vincent, wait!"  
  
And it was almost a surprise when he did stop. Moved to look back at her. But his posture was rigid and resolved, his face expressionless. A little afraid to realize that she didn't know how much of it, if any of it, was a mask. Lily would've known, though. Lily could read him like a book, through time and effort and experience. And Tifa felt that strange kind of envy again for a sharp second. Envy for that closeness, that Lily had been let in.  
  
She on the outside, an eventual observer of his smirks, his subtle moods, his short, occasional conversation, his sporadic sense of wry humour. Sometimes, a surprised but willing participant. Underwritten by fear, though, all the time. And now, all gone. They'd never known him. More than a shadow, a shell. A hard person to know, maybe. But she would never know.  
  
Because all she saw now was the shadow, the shell. The Vincent who didn't smoke or play cards or eat banana bread. The Vincent who had left Avalanche without any of the parting nicities. And she knew, right now, it was all Cloud saw, too.  
  
"Good-bye, Tifa." Short, clipped, to-the-point. And then walking away.  
  
"No, wait!" It was almost without her permission. Panicking fear, and she couldn't be left alone, couldn't be left without an escape. Just for another minute. "Please, Vincent, please. Just stay, for a minute. Please."  
  
'Please, not an impenetrable wall. Not right now. Not sure what will move you, but please, be moved. Responsible for life, please look at it that way. It's not in the best interests of my life to be left here alone right now.'  
  
And so much, too much there, both too simple and too complicated to explain to herself why she would think of it as being left alone. Cloud here, but not Vincent.  
  
And relieved beyond words when Vincent slowed to a halt a few feet away, and then turned. And waited with the barest impression of irritation or impatience.  
  
"What the hell is going on?"  
  
'Don't be angry, Cloud. I need to explain.'  
  
"I...I was in Nibelheim..."  
  
"With Vincent?"  
  
Wrong. It was going to come out all wrong. "No, just listen, please. I was living with someone else, a woman. I... The bar... I just, I had no money, and things were getting worse and worse..."  
  
Worried. He looked worried again. How long had it been since he'd looked worried, for her? Hero Cloud, and this was what he knew how to deal with. He could be the strong one for her. So many 'It'll be all right, Tifa,' hugs and hand squeezes and pats on the shoulder in Avalanche when she'd worried aloud about which of their team might die. Might die next. But whenever he'd been the weak one, he'd brushed her off. Closed himself up. And she hadn't been able to be girlie and sweet and innocent for him, to catch him off-guard and make him smile. She hadn't been Aeris.  
  
She'd been silent strength, a willing ear, a shoulder to lean on, things he'd never used or appreciated. And eventually, she'd just been silent.  
  
"Tif, what are you trying to tell me? What happened?" His hands, coming up to rest comfortingly on her shoulders.  
  
And she knew the touch would hurt her, make her cry, make her weak. Make her crumble into his waiting strength. And she knew she couldn't. It was the wrong time. She had to tell him, they had to talk, things had to be made right. Almost automatic, like a defense mechanism. Jolting away from him like he might've wanted to hurt her.  
  
"Don't! Don't touch me."  
  
Cloud, confused and hurt and angry. "What? What'd I do?"  
  
"Nothing." Everything. "Just, please. I tried to kill myself, Cloud."  
  
His face, shocked into blank surprise. "What?" And then that hard, confused anger. "Why?"  
  
"I... I just... There was so much debt, and you left me with...God, with all of the fucking lease payments, by myself..."  
  
"You tried to kill yourself because of money?" He sounded incredulous.  
  
And something in her was aching with the fear that she would never be able to say it right, to make him understand. "No! You broke my heart, Cloud!" Tears on her face, and she wondered when she'd started crying.  
  
And his expression became the one she'd seen so many times, the one she'd learned to hate. Guilty offense, angry and afraid of being blamed for something that had happened because of something he'd done or not done. Aeris' death, almost Tifa's death. And for the first time she realized, really realized how much it would've hurt him if she'd managed a successful suicide.  
  
"We both knew it wasn't working! I had to get away, to think! I needed to resolve some things!"  
  
For them. Maybe it really had been for them. He'd left because he'd wanted to save the relationship. But... "You left in the middle of the night! You never said anything about it! What was I supposed to think? I didn't know if you were ever coming back..."  
  
"Well, what was I supposed to say? Goddammit, Tifa. You weren't even looking at me anymore."  
  
And she knew that was true, but she'd only stopped because it had hurt to look at him. "Cloud, this isn't getting us anywhere." Her voice sounded small in her own ears. Once, she might've just stayed silent until he walked away. But she felt different now. She knew it couldn't be left hanging. It had to be dealt with properly. And she knew, just as surely, that right now wasn't a good time. "We need to talk about things. We need to work this out. But it's the middle of the night..."  
  
"Then lets go back to the bar. We can sit down and talk..."  
  
"But, Cloud, I'm tired and..."  
  
"Then we'll talk in the morning." He stretched out a hand; not touching her, but hovering there beside her shoulder, as if to urge her to walk with him.  
  
So damn reasonable, it made her feel petty and argumentative to shake her head. But she knew. "I can't stay here, Cloud. I'm sorry, but..."  
  
"What...what are you talking about?"  
  
And he knew better, too. Or he should've. "We can't just...start living together again. We need to talk without...without sleeping together."  
  
"We won't, then..."  
  
"But we will!" It would only be a matter of time. An accident. A drink, a missing card, leaning over and seeing the wary, fearful desire on his face, in his eyes. Unable to stop herself from leaning into that warmth.  
  
And, where Vincent had resisted, she knew Cloud would not. Vincent had a will like an anchor.  
  
Cloud searched her expression quickly for a moment, and then dropped his eyes. And she knew he knew she was right.  
  
"I'm sorry, Cloud." And she was, more than he would ever know, she thought. Sorry, angry, hurting. Fighting so hard against the longing she had to just throw it all to the wind, burrow herself into his arms, make everything else go away just for one moment of happy reunion. "I'll call you, if you stay in the house. If the phone still works there. But, I'll come back, in any case. And, if you still want, we can talk then." She had to forcibly bite off the 'Okay?' that wanted to finish the sentence. So much wanting him to understand, to know he would still be here, to have some assurance that he wouldn't just leave again.  
  
Though there was no assurance for anything. Not that he would stay. Not that anything would actually *be* resolved. Not that they would ever be able to pick up where they'd left off. Too different and too the same. It would take a lot of work to make it work. But maybe. Maybe...  
  
And Cloud nodded a little, not looking at her, not arguing anymore. He'd lost. No longer holding the high card.  
  
Vincent had given her the queen of hearts back.  
  
And she turned to him.  
  
He was still there, waiting for her. Part of her felt she should attempt a grateful smile, but her mouth wouldn't cooperate, and so she simply approached. Left Cloud out of ear-shot. "Take me back to Nibelheim, please." Almost a whisper, looking into his non-expression and trying to find some hint that he might help her. "I can't stay here. I need to go somewhere, and I have a job there. I could get my own apartment. Please."  
  
But that wasn't all of it. It would never be that simple. The lines around his mouth tightened with the faintest hint of a frown, and she knew he hadn't been fooled by the rose-coloured picture. Her own apartment, but she wouldn't want to be alone. Square one, again. They would have to share Lily, avoid each other.  
  
Or learn to live with each other, come to some agreement with some boundaries.  
  
She could fairly feel the uncertainty in his hesitation, his desire to say no. But he was hesitating. And that meant she had some kind of leverage. He knew what it would mean to leave her here. Not necessarily life-threatening, but she sensed the feeling of responsibility from him. Something, some reason for him to feel obligated...  
  
Maybe the simple fact that he did understand? Maybe some way to convince him...  
  
"If it was Lucrecia, what would you do? Would you stay?"  
  
A shift in his expression, like she'd caught him off-guard with the question. And then his eyebrows twitching down, maybe angry at her for the low-blow, for having invoked the name of Lucrecia, for making him feel he should help. Almost glaring at her, red eyes bright in the dark, glowing out of the hard, pale angles of his face. But she made herself face him. Please, please. Selfish of her, maybe. But, please, she didn't want to be alone. Let it be Nibelheim. Please, she wanted to go home.  
  
And then he sighed visibly and dropped his gaze. Turned back toward the stable without a word.  
  
And she followed.  
  
***  
  
This isn't the last chapter! I'm splitting it into two! Just letting people know this isn't the end, so people don't get horribly angry at me and send me threatening emails or something. Still need to see Vincent's side of things, and to have a little closure.  
  
Thanks for reviews! I know everyone's getting worried about the ending, but I hate sad endings. Please, bear with me a little longer! *glances over her shoulder at Tifa and Vincent very obviously making out against a portion of the set* Gah! Can't you two do that somewhere else? This is an angsty fic!  
  
*both glance up, looking slightly rumpled and not a bit apologetic*  
  
Vincent: *releasing Tifa's thigh from his hip* Hey, you created the sexual tension. By the way, I don't need my trailer anymore.  
  
Tifa: *chuckles and takes his hand* C'mon, let's go find a closet. 


	25. Messy

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Chapter Twenty-Four: Messy  
  
by thelittletree  
  
'Ooh, this could be messy / But you don't seem to mind...'  
  
--- 'Hands Clean', Alanis Morissette  
  
Trying very hard not to think. The cold, the texture of Vincent's coat in her fingers again, that spot between his shoulder blades, the air misting out of her mouth. Shivering a little. Now that they were on the way back to Nibelheim, she was starting to think of it in terms of a dream. Now she was in the present. Now she was going back home, and she would wake up on Lily's couch, go to work with Mr. Fallowfield, eat warm food, play cards, drink tea.  
  
Cloud would be far away again, almost like she didn't know where he was. The further they traveled, the more it would feel like this hadn't really happened. All a part of another bad dream, the life she'd died to. Back to life she'd woken up to. Back to the life that was the reality. Back to finding out who she really was without...  
  
Training. It had all started with training, a long time ago. Well, it had all started with her father, actually. But she couldn't go back to that. It would start again with what Zangan had left her as his legacy. Tifa, the Tifa she'd known a long time ago, had not been focused on her pain, had not been obsessed with a love that wasn't working, had not even been the job. She had been a fighter. Her first love, the feel of that strength and ability in her limbs. The smell, the creak, the solid resistance of the old punching bag, now buried in Midgar with the rest of the dead. It was all a part of who she had been.  
  
Who she would be again.  
  
Her mind was stumbling over something, some memory triggered by something that had happened. A glance, a movement, maybe a word. She was a little hesitant to think too much about it. Hesitant the way she might've been, sitting up in bed in the middle of the night with a piece of a forgotten nightmare niggling at the back of her thoughts like an itch that wants scratching. But she gave in after a few moments and let her mind struggle sluggishly for the connection. What was it?  
  
Oh yes. She remembered. A comparison. That sudden pull, that sudden fear of hurting that had made her jump away when Cloud had tried to touch her, to yell "Don't!" when she knew she was too weak to withstand the draw, the warmth, the memory of comfort in his embrace. A memory that had come up so strongly, she might've been standing in his arms yesterday.  
  
Vincent, stepping away from her in his living room like she might've been scalding hot. Vincent, suddenly pulling his lips out of the kiss and breathing into the silence. Vincent, harsh and loud and using the word like it was the only weapon he had to stop her: "Don't!"  
  
Not wanting to be hurt. Not by something that could sap the will because a part of you wanted it so much, because a part of you still remembered how good it had been and how much agony it had given birth to when it had died. Cloud and she had had it. But not she and Vincent. For Vincent, it had been a long time ago, another life, another woman. And maybe she should've realized it before, maybe she could've confronted him about it, maybe all of this wouldn't have happened if she hadn't been too caught up in her own pain to try to understand why he was so afraid.  
  
Lucrecia. It all had to do with Lucrecia. The way it all had to do with Cloud for her. She was frightened and hesitant; Vincent, scarred and traumatized, maybe because Lucrecia had died. But maybe if she'd known, she could've addressed it properly. Could've talked to him about it. Could have saved them both the pain and discomfort.  
  
But no use in regretting the past. Time to look to the future. Right? A future where she made decisions for herself, where she had her own bedroom, where she finally brought Cloud into perspective, not as the old Cloud who she'd loved and who had hurt her, but as a new Cloud. Someone to meet again on new ground. Forgetting what had happened before in the hopes of learning it all again. Forgetting the sound of his voice in the morning, the way he hummed off-key when he made coffee; forgetting the quick movements of his hands when he did up his boots, likely the way they'd taught him when he'd been training in soldier and needed to be quick; forgetting the feel of his hands on her body in the beginning, how beautiful he'd looked, eyes dark and half-lidded with passion...  
  
Oh...oh God...  
  
***  
  
Vincent was angry. Angry enough to want to bring their mount to a halt, order her back to Kalm, claim Nibelheim for his own again and let her deal with her own damn problems by herself.  
  
That's what she'd intended to do. So that's what she should've done. He had his own life, his own demons, his own wounds. Didn't want to have to deal with her, with *this*, anymore. He wasn't a hero, didn't want her to feel like she could run to him when she felt she couldn't cope; he couldn't be anyone's shelter. It was infuriating, frustrating...  
  
Knowing that he was going to take her to Nibelheim anyway. Knowing that it had been his choice to save her in the first place from the water. Knowing that to leave her there with Cloud would have simply brought her back to where she'd been. She wouldn't have healed, and even if he'd stayed at the inn to watch her, it would only have been a waiting game until she'd come to the bridge again. The same stupid situation over and over...  
  
Damn Cloud for having been there. Damn Tifa for having turned to him to help her again when she could've turned to anyone else they'd traveled with in Avalanche. Damn himself, for having given in.  
  
And damn the part of him that had felt a fierce flash of protective panic when she'd been running toward him, her eyes wide and frightened, her hair flying behind her. Too much like the way it had fluttered when she'd thrown herself into the water, as if it had been trying to escape the tragedy. Damn that strange jealousy when he'd realized it was Cloud. Not Lucrecia, and not Hojo. Not the same at all.  
  
But all of the same damn feelings. Some part of him wanting to tell her that it would be wrong for her to stay. Some part unwillingly proud of her when she'd stood her ground against her own heart, the way Lucrecia hadn't. Some part wanting to take her back, to keep her from what might hurt her, from those who might try to make her stay.  
  
Torn. Wanting to push her away, and wanting what other people had and took for granted. Wanting her...  
  
And just wanting some peace, some small space of time without this hellish inner conflict. Please, just himself and Lily and that quiet kind of life back. It was the first peace he'd had in a long time, and probably the best he could ever hope for. Didn't care if poker was never the same; didn't care if some part of him was going to miss her; didn't even care what Lily might threaten him with, because her anger wouldn't last forever. Just, please...  
  
Tifa had been silent since they'd left Kalm, and so far he'd been glad for it. Too angry to try and be civil right now. Not that her feelings should matter, really, but things were certainly uncomfortable enough without trying to bring some kind of conversation into it.  
  
Now, however, she was becoming not so silent. Not speaking, but her breathing...  
  
Gasping a little. Sharper, as she began to panic. He should've expected, he realized belatedly as her fingers in his coat became the pressure of her nails through the material, and he had to fight a hiss of pain as the wound above his hip gave a sudden twinge of complaint. You could only remain in numb shock for as long as a part of you didn't believe what you had witnessed, or done, was the truth. And then it turned into a trauma until even your muscles were fighting against every breath.  
  
"Tifa..."  
  
"I can't breathe. Oh God, I can't breathe..."  
  
"Hold on." Dammit. Too far to go back, too far to go forward to Nibelheim, and along this stretch of the ride he knew there was no kind of shelter for at least half a mile. They would just have to chance it for a few minutes. He brought their mount to a halt. "Let go of me. We're going to dismount."  
  
Once he was on the ground, however, she looked less than ready to join him, her darting eyes rapidly measuring the amount of space between herself and the dark grass. And, trying not to grimace, he came a step closer and held out his arms. "Slip to the side. I'll catch you."  
  
She was shivering, he noticed, as she did as he said and slowly allowed herself to start sliding toward him. Just before she got to the point of no return, though, she stopped herself, still gasping out her breaths. "Don't let me fall," she pleaded.  
  
"I wouldn't. Trust me."  
  
And she closed her eyes and let go.  
  
She seemed to weigh less now than the first day he'd carried her, but then she had been limp and water-logged. And this time he was only holding her a brief second before putting her onto the ground on her own feet. Shivering, her arms coming around automatically to hold herself, her fingers already clenching into cramping fists as she worked to try and catch her breath.  
  
And then she stumbled with a startled sound as he slipped out of his coat, nearly falling with the boneless, unconscious grace of fainting. Catching herself just as he shot out his hand for her elbow. Her eyes suddenly flashing with a restless fear, an uncertain kind of pain.  
  
"I...I can't do this. What am I doing? I can't. He came back for me, I can't just leave. Oh God, there's so much...I didn't say." Gasping, starting to panic. "I...I have to...talk to him...before he...leaves again."  
  
It wasn't her talking, not really her; not the rational part of her that knew it would be a bad idea to return. And he couldn't help thinking of something he'd witnessed once that, though it had hardly seemed to touch him then, sometimes came to mind now with a pang of something like sympathetic anguish. A mother outside of her house, watching it burn, long past saving, screaming and sobbing and fighting against the arms of some bystanders as she'd tried to make them understand...  
  
'My daughter! My daughter's in there! Let go, please, oh God, she's burning...'  
  
She wouldn't save her old relationship this way, no more than that mother would have been able to save her dead daughter. No more than he'd been able to find Lucrecia, even her body, in his travels after Avalanche had disbanded. Searching for life, searching for reason, searching for *her*. Unable to die, he'd had to move on. That mother would have had to move on. Tifa would have to move on.  
  
There was never any life when one looked back. Only dead memories. And one could live years among them before they realized that they were really living in a cemetery.  
  
"Calm down." His voice was a little harsher than he'd intended it to sound and he consciously forced himself to take his own advice as he furled his coat around her shoulders. "He'll still be there if you return tomorrow."  
  
"How...how do you know? What if he...leaves in the night?"  
  
"Then he would have left eventually anyway."  
  
Caught off-guard again, it was too late in the end to avoid it completely. Not a slap, like Lily would have, but a balled fist aimed for the side of his mouth. Though he caught it on the jaw; a bruise, maybe, but no trickle of blood. A surprisingly strong punch for someone who was without her training, and currently hyperventilating.  
  
And then Tifa covered her own mouth with fingers shaking out of shock. "Oh...oh God, I'm sorry..."  
  
But she'd meant that punch; too late to take the intent back. Hadn't wanted to hear the truth; had wanted to shut him up. And he remembered something. Talking to Lucrecia, trying to convince her the experiment she was participating in with Hojo was dangerous, trying to assure her that he wasn't only trying to convince her of this to make her come with him, trying to make her understand that he loved her and only wanted to make sure she was all right.  
  
And Lucrecia hadn't wanted to hear it. Slapped him soundly, and then stared into his face with her mouth open as if she couldn't believe what she'd done. Fled from him, and things had never been the same between them.  
  
But Tifa wasn't fleeing. And he struggled for a moment with the first urge of his offended anger: to get back onto his chocobo and leave her here to walk back to Kalm on her own. But he knew he couldn't, knew he wouldn't. Too many things in the darkness that wouldn't mind an easy meal. And too many reasons, both impartial and uncomfortable, for her not to go back to Kalm. So he simply took a silent calming breath and let himself glare coldly at her, raising an eyebrow. "Feel better?"  
  
"God, I..." She seemed unable to keep meeting his eyes. "I'm sorry, Vincent. I don't know why I did that."  
  
But he knew. And, really, he thought with a sigh, there was no point in harping on it. Resigned, he let his anger go. "Forget it. If you're ready, we should continue."  
  
She glanced up at him again as if surprised by the change in his tone. But then, instead of nodding, she turned away, drew his coat a little closer about her shoulders. "He's going to be mad at me when I come back," she began softly, and Vincent was initially unsure if she was speaking to him. "He can be really difficult when he's mad. I might've had more luck talking to him tonight." She took a breath, and then let it out in a slow mist of air. "But we would've started again where we left off, I know we would've. And nothing would've been resolved. And it all would've just happened again." She ran a hand through her hair as she looked back through the darkness, back in the direction Kalm lay, and gave another weary sigh. "I don't know what I want to do. I'm sorry. I can be so...indecisive, and I hate it."  
  
At least she seemed calmer now, though perhaps they were further from getting on their way than they'd been when they'd stopped. "Simply decide, and accept the consequences. It doesn't have to be complicated."  
  
And after a moment she gave a quick shrug with one shoulder. "Maybe." And then she fell silent.  
  
And Vincent allowed her reverie for nearly a minute before finally giving in to his impatience and the logic of caution. "Tifa, we can't stay out here indefinitely."  
  
"I know. Let's go."  
  
"To Kalm or Nibelheim?"  
  
And she turned to look at him, and he realized that he was almost surprised not to see tears on her face. "What do you think I should do?"  
  
"I think you should make up your mind."  
  
She turned away from him again. "But you would prefer it if I went to Kalm."  
  
And he tensed against her words, not wanting to get into this conversation, especially right now. Craving a cigarette suddenly. "You can do what you like."  
  
"What if..." Her voice seemed a little shaky somehow. "What if I'd 'like' to kiss you again?"  
  
He *really* didn't want to be having this conversation. For so long, they'd managed not to talk about it, and now she was going to avoid all of the rules of social comfort and pull out all of the stops. And, though there was a rational part of him that knew this particular topic would have come up again someday, one way or another, he hadn't really wanted to acknowledge the truth of it.  
  
"See, you'd prefer it if I went to Kalm."  
  
"It's not a matter of preference," he told her, trying not to sound as stiff and uncomfortable as he felt. "This isn't my decision to make."  
  
"But if I decide to go to Nibelheim, it creates problems, doesn't it?"  
  
He fought against giving a heavy sigh. "As I see it, there are problems no matter what you choose."  
  
"But at least if I go back to Kalm I'm not involving anyone else in those problems." Her breathing was starting to become unsteady again; quiet, uneven gasps.  
  
It was true. And if he said so, he was fairly sure she would make up her mind to go back to Kalm. Face her own problems alone, the way a proud individual did. The way he'd planned to when he'd settled in Nibelheim.  
  
He'd never told Lily; wasn't likely ever to tell her. Though she probably knew it anyway. He'd needed her. He'd needed her friendship, her care, her understanding. And, even if those things hadn't solved his problems, they had made them bearable. Grateful, but selfish. Was it ungrateful to deny others the same balm for their pain? Dishonourable to abandon someone who was hurting when there was something you could do?  
  
Dammit. He couldn't do it. "Tifa..." And it felt embarrassing on some level to admit it. "I wasn't going to leave you alone if you'd stayed in Kalm."  
  
She turned around to look at him in obvious surprise. "What? What do you mean?"  
  
"I was planning to stay at the inn until I knew you were all right."  
  
And the change in her expression was a fascinating, beautiful thing to watch, as much as a part of him wished he hadn't noticed. The dull calm of the mask she'd donned to hide her fear simply vanishing as she broke into a sudden, teary smile. Like abruptly coming across a rainbow in a sky of clouds. "Really?" And then she wiped at her eyes with the available collar of his coat. "Sorry, I don't know why I'm crying. Oh, and this is your coat..." She moved as if to shrug out of it.  
  
"Keep it on." Fighting the urge to tuck it more securely around her neck. "To keep you warm."  
  
That smile again, her eyes shining and her lips trembling. "Okay. Thanks." And then she took a second to compose herself. "Nibelheim it is, then. Since you would've come and stayed with me in Kalm anyway."  
  
He mounted the chocobo first and then gave her the stability of his elbow again as she pulled herself up behind him. And then he could nearly feel her restless uncertainty a moment before her hands came to rest on either side of his waist. Without his coat, he belatedly realized, he had left her with nothing to hold onto, and he had to struggle with the immediate inclination to twitch away from the contact.  
  
She seemed to sense his discomfort anyway, however. "Is...is this okay, Vincent?"  
  
And he nodded. A little *too* okay, maybe, but it would only be for a few more hours.  
  
"Then..." A brush against his spine through his shirt between his shoulder-blades that might've been her forehead, her nose, her lips. Maybe accidental. "...take me home."  
  
A comfortable silence as they rode. And, eventually weary, both emotionally and physically Vincent expected, Tifa leaned forward to rest her cheek against his back. Didn't ask him this time if it was okay. And he made no complaint. Only for a few hours. And maybe he could even let himself enjoy the closeness, just for a little while.  
  
***  
  
Unresolved, a bit, at the end. Though there's still the epilogue to come.  
  
Thanks so much for reviews! I've had so much fun writing this fic! Maybe someday I'll write a sequel, where he eventually falls in love with the girl... Oh wait, I did that already with 'Does Fate Allow...', didn't I? *grin* Who knows what's in store next? Maybe I'll actually start to write stuff I can get published somewhere for money... 


	26. Epilogue

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.  
  
***  
  
Epilogue (or Chapter Twenty-Five, whatever you prefer): What You Have Given Me  
  
by thelittletree  
  
She pushed the arm chair into the corner and looked at it. Still not quite right. Pulled it out a little, turned it on an angle. Almost...but not quite. Maybe Lily had been right about this one. It was nice, but not everything nice could fit in one place.  
  
The drone of the vacuum cleaner became suddenly obvious through its absence.  
  
"'Kay, that's the bedroom done." Lily was working to tidy her feathery bangs as she walked into the living room. "How'd the fridge and stove look?"  
  
Tifa scowled a little at the chair. "Fine. Clean." And then she stepped away and gestured at the offending piece of furniture. "Well? What do you think?"  
  
Lily gave a small smirk. "Told you it might be too much. But there's a space there in your bedroom, maybe it would fit. Or maybe Vince would take it."  
  
Tifa turned back to the chair, trying to picture it in Vincent's living room. "Well, maybe. I'll try it in the bedroom first. But not right now." She lowered herself into the cushions with a sigh. "If I try to move one more chair or table or couch or bed today, my arms are going to come loose."  
  
"Then don't. Let's have some tea. Where's that kettle? Where's Vince?"  
  
Lily disappeared into the kitchen. Tifa fingered the elastic Vincent had lent her a moment before pulling it out of her hair with a sigh, trying not to imagine what she must look like. "In the cupboard over the stove, and I don't know. I think he went to get something."  
  
"Figures. As soon as we start cleaning, he disappears." The sound of the water running. "The pressure's low in the kitchen. You might want to mention that to the landlord."  
  
"Okay." She stretched her legs out and wearily pushed at the heels of her shoes with her toes until she'd bared her feet. "Thanks again, Lily, for all your help."  
  
"Like I said, not a problem. Did you get everything you needed from Kalm?"  
  
Not everything. "Yes. Cloud bought his own silverware and pots and pans and things, so I took all of my stuff."  
  
"Good. And the lease?"  
  
Tifa left off in a little surprise from where she'd been picking at a nail. "I didn't tell you?"  
  
"Don't think so."  
  
Must've told Vincent, she realized, and just expected him to tell Lily. "Cloud and I talked to him, the owner, and he agreed to waive the rest of the payments. He has someone else who's interested in the property. So all we have to do now is pay off the existing debt, and we're in the clear."  
  
"Glad to hear it." A drawer opening, and then a pause. "Shit, how many kinds of tea does one woman need?"  
  
Tifa couldn't help a chuckle. "They're herbal. Try the peach apricot and chamomile."  
  
A knock at the door. Well, there was one question answered. With a breath, Tifa prepared to lift herself from the chair. Before she could stand, however, Lily interrupted her effort.  
  
"God, we're not going to come let you in, Vince. Just turn the knob and let yourself in. I promise we're not naked or changing or peeing with the door open."  
  
With another chuckle, Tifa dropped herself back into the chair.  
  
From where she was, she couldn't see the front door, but she heard it open. And, after a few moments of uncharacteristic silence, she could hear the sibilant sound of hushed voices. And her lips began to twitch into a smile. Vincent, maybe, but Lily would never win an award for being subtle or good with surprises.  
  
"What's all that whispering about?" she couldn't help asking after a couple of seconds.  
  
It quickly died off. And then the sound of movement.  
  
"No, Vince, stay here. C'mon, dammit. Don't be such a cold fish for once in your life. Quick, Tifa, come in here before he gets away."  
  
Exhaustion could wait. This surprise she had to get up for; if it was making Vincent want to disappear before she could see it, before she could express any gratitude for it she thought, it had to be good.  
  
Lily was grinning from ear to ear when Tifa entered the kitchen, one of her hands wrapped resolutely around Vincent's elbow, the other holding what looked like an envelope. Vincent, however, looked the epitome of unwilling discomfiture. Dressed in his usual black with his hair scooped hastily behind his ears, he stood staring at nothing in particular, his expression scrupulously blank.  
  
"There's supper on the counter," Lily said without gesturing, "and my cards and...a little bit of wine to christen the place." She gave a quick wink. "But this is from Vince." She held the envelope out to her.  
  
That startled her. Something solely from Vincent, especially after he'd already done her a service in carrying some of the heavier things into her apartment. If anything, she should be giving *him* something for his help. Though that would have to come later, when Lily wasn't around.  
  
"Thank you." She took the envelope without looking at Vincent, not sure how to do this without making him more uncomfortable. "You didn't have to."  
  
Vincent didn't say anything. He was watching her, though, she noticed as she glanced up once before slipping a nail under the glue, out of the corner of his eye.  
  
A small piece of rectangular paper, like a cheque. She pulled it out and let her eyes scan the generated writing, looking for an explanation. And then she couldn't help a sudden gasp as she realized what it was, what it meant. "Oh...oh my God." She looked up, feeling distinctly close to tears.  
  
Vincent was now watching her directly, though his eyes seemed wary as if he wasn't sure what kind of reaction to expect from her.  
  
She gazed back down at the paper. "Oh, Vincent. I can't accept this."  
  
"It's already done."  
  
She glanced up again, trying to blink her eyes dry. "Why...when did you do this?"  
  
"What? What the hell is it?" Lily looked ready to burst with impatience.  
  
Vincent didn't reply to her question. Tifa turned her attention to Lily and showed her the paper. "It's a receipt. For my debt on the bar in Kalm." She realized she was nearly whispering and cleared her throat. "With Vincent's signature on the bottom." At least, she guessed it was his signature, scrawled in sharp, tight lines where only the v's and t's were anywhere close to recognizable.  
  
Lily raised her eyebrows in obvious shock. "Vince, where the hell did you get the money for that?"  
  
But he seemed content to keep it his secret. Tifa bit into her lip, wanting both to accept it with no questions and to demand to know how he'd managed it. Finally sighed. "Vincent, really, I can't accept this. It's too much."  
  
"One less thing you'll have to pay for." His eyes were firmly focused on the receipt. "To make sure you can make ends meet."  
  
To make sure she wasn't coming back to live on Lily's couch, she thought. "Well, then, I'll pay you back..."  
  
"Not necessary."  
  
And Lily smirked with a sudden scoff. "Give up, Tifa. He'll never take any money from you. Just accept it. You don't pay gifts back."  
  
And, after another few moments of struggling with the idea, Tifa gave in. Glanced up at him again with a grateful smile. "Thank you, Vincent. This is..." But she wasn't sure words would do it justice. Too much, certainly. Worrying about something for so long, and then suddenly having it all put right...were there words to describe the relief? She had to blink back her tears again. "This is the best gift, I think, anyone could have ever given me." And she chuckled a little. "Or forced on me. Thank you so much."  
  
Didn't miss the quick flash of movement at his throat as he swallowed, gave a quick nod.  
  
And, with her usual sense of good timing, Lily interrupted the moment before it could become uncomfortable. "Well, if you two don't mind waiting for me, I'm going to go change before we eat. My cards are there if you want to start a game." And she slipped into her sandals and went out the door.  
  
As if looking for something to occupy the sudden space in the room, Vincent picked up the deck and, sitting himself at the table, began to shuffle. But Tifa wasn't ready quite yet to start playing. She ducked out of the room and went into her still empty bedroom closet where she'd hidden something behind her suitcases. Walked back into the kitchen, trying not to grin like fool.  
  
"Vincent?"  
  
He glanced up from shuffling.  
  
"Here's something for you, too. For helping me move." She brought it out from behind her back.  
  
There was a questioning kind of recognition in his eyes as he took the bundle, and then it faded into surprised comprehension as he unfolded the gray material to reveal a sweater.  
  
This time she couldn't hide her smile. "It's to replace the other one. And..."  
  
The rest of the gift fell out into his hand. A package of cigarettes.  
  
"For your vice. Until Lily will let you smoke hers again." She pulled a lighter out of a pocket where she'd stowed it and put it on the table. "It doesn't hold a candle to what you gave me, but..." She shrugged a shoulder and trailed off.  
  
And she couldn't deny the spark of delight she felt as his expression softened a little. "Thank you, Tifa."  
  
"Well..." She shrugged once more, trying to make it casual. "Maybe it's kind of an apology, too, for everything."  
  
He flicked his eyes up suddenly and his gaze was shuttered for a moment as if he would have preferred that she hadn't brought it up. But then, as if he was releasing some tension, his eyes became gentler again and she half expected him to say, 'Forget it.'  
  
"Don't feel you have to apologize, Tifa." He hesitated a moment. Dropped his eyes to the package of cigarettes. "I'm not angry." He stopped for a second time, and then gave a quiet sigh through his nose. Made himself look into her face, she thought. "Everyone needs a place they feel secure in," he began quietly. "I have no grounds to say where that place is for you. I have no monopoly on peace."  
  
And she couldn't help another small smile. "But you deserve some share in it. We'll just have to..."  
  
A quick flash of unease in his eyes, and she decided to choose her words carefully.  
  
"...work on it."  
  
She and Cloud had talked. Twice already. Still on shaky ground, because she was still angry and he still wouldn't admit that he was really to blame for her suicide attempt. Both of their faults maybe, and it would take awhile to come to an understanding. Hard to tell right now if they would ever get back together.  
  
And Vincent. Still so shaky. So hard to tell what she felt. He was a hard person to know, maybe a hard person to get along with sometimes. But she was attracted. And he could be... Sometimes he could be. And someday, if things went down a particular path out of all of the paths that were possible, maybe...  
  
Maybe he would someday realize that she was not Lucrecia. And not all love had to be painful.   
  
Vincent only nodded at her words. Looked down at his hands as he began to worry at the plastic around the cigarette package with a metal finger until it gave way, and then he pulled one out and slipped it between his lips.  
  
And Tifa pushed the lighter to him across the table. "So, are we going to play?"  
  
"If you're going to sit down."  
  
Half way through the second game, the door opened and Lily entered. "I'm back," she called unnecessarily amid the sound of sandals dropping onto linoleum. And then, "Is that cigarette smoke I smell?"  
  
And Tifa glanced up to find herself sharing a startled, guilty look with Vincent. Almost without a second thought, she reached over and plucked the cigarette out of his mouth, slipping it between her own lips. And then she looked back to her cards, trying not to inhale.  
  
And Vincent, she soon realized, had the best 'What the hell are you talking about?' expression she'd ever seen. Though somewhere between tea and wine and playing and eating and Tifa coughing and wiping her eyes, Lily finally broke it apart.  
  
"Oh, let him smoke the goddamn thing. I don't care. Let's just play!"  
  
Tifa laughed, and it felt good to laugh. Vincent smiled, nearly a full, amused smile. And it felt good to see it, like looking at something you never could have imagined if only because it would never have been as beautiful as the real thing. And they played cards.  
  
And it felt like home.  
  
***  
  
The End. There. It's done. *sniffle*  
  
This story was a *lot* of fun to do, and I have so many people to thank for making me continue it. All of you readers and reviewers (I'd write all of your names down, but that would take forever. You all know who you are!); my Dad for reading and encouraging me and constantly asking when my next chapter was going to be up; my two sisters for being an audience willing to read or listen to me drone on; the boy who lives in my house and eats my food and steals the covers; and (of course) the characters who live in my head and occasionally make their way onto paper. Or computer screen.  
  
Thank you. Much love.  
  
---thelittletree 


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